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COULSDON AND PURLEY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to present to you my Annual Report for 1948, this being my
seventeenth report as your Medical Officer of Health.
In general it will be found to correspond to its predecessors, with
the exception that certain parts, and particularly the section on Maternity
and Child Welfare, necessarily reflect the influence of the National Health
Service Act and the transfer of responsibilities which resulted from its
implementation. Here I have taken the opportunity to include details
of the present arrangements instead of reporting the numerical results of
activities of this service during the final six months under the control
of your Council, which it is hoped will prove more useful.
Reviewing the state of the public health in this District during 1948
it is very pleasing to note that as judged by the vital statistics, improvement
has occurred in almost every important rate. The general Death Rate,
Tuberculosis, Cancer and Maternal Mortality Death Rates all decreased
considerably, while the Infantile and Neo-natal Mortality Rates remained
at a low level. The incidence of infectious disease, with the exception of
measles and whooping cough among the general public, and dysentery
in the mental hospitals, was as low as it ever has been in the history of
this District. Particularly satisfactory is the absence of a case of diphtheria
among the local residents for the second year in succession. In spite of
the first visit of the Mass Radiography Unit to the District, which resulted
in the detection of a number of early cases of pulmonary tuberculosis,
a decrease in the incidence of this disease occurred, but this was partially
offset by a further slight increase in the incidence of non-pulmonary
tuberculosis. The marked fall in the Birth Rate in 1948 was also a feature
which is not generally considered commendable.
The year 1948 is thus both locally and nationally a good one to serve
as a datum line by which to measure, as time goes on, the effect of the
National Health Service on the prevention of disease and its influence on
the public health generally. It would obviously be premature to consider
yet the results of this new organisation. Time must elapse before it can
be expected to work smoothly and at its maximum efficiency.
It is difficult not to express regret that so little attempt-appeared to
be made to modify the impact of this revolutionary measure; the lesson
which should have been learned from the impossibility of implementing
the Education Act, 1944, in accordance with an unreasonable and over-
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