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Public Health Department,
civic centre,
Dagenham.
To: THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNcILLORS OF THE BOROUGH OF DAGENHAM.
Unfortunately, this report has been long delayed because of the multitude
of problems created by amalgamation, and it is very difficult at the time of
writing this introduction to cast one's mind back to 1964 when the next three
months were the preliminary to amalgamation of the Borough with the Borough of
Barking to form a new Greater London Borough.
During the year there was a slight increase of infant mortality rate. This
was due mainly to the increase of deaths due to birth injury, but the general
tendency is still for the infant mortality rate to decline year by year. The
number of deaths due to heart disease was a little less than 1963 most of the
deaths in this group being due to coronary disease and angina.
Deaths from lung cancer continue to climb. During 1964, 88 people died as
compared with 74 in 1963. In spite of a good deal of intensive health education
about the dangers of smoking, we have not yet seen any appreciable effects.
This may be because the effect of smoking takes many years to produce cancer of
the lung, and therefore it will take many years to reduce deaths from this
cause. It is unfortunate that one of the few conditions which we know we can
affect by health education responds so poorly to our efforts in this direction.
cancer of the cervix in women, which can be detected in the very early
stage by taking smears from the neck of the womb and examining them under a
microscope, is another type of cancer which lends itself to prevention. A
start in this detection service was made in 1964 in a limited way by agreement
with the Pathologist at Oldchurch Hospital. This service began in May, and
between May and December 92 women were tested. None was discovered to be in
need of further treatment. We hope that as the pathological facilities become
available this screening procedure will become a major activity in preventive
medicine, particularly as the condition is present so often in the mothers of
young children.
As usual, the Public Health Inspectors were extremely busy during 1964.
Almost 10,000 visits were paid in relation to the clean Air Act by the Public
Health Inspectors to instance only one activity. The Offices, Shops & Railway
Premises Act 1963 came into operation during the year. A start was made on
the visiting of shops which dealt with food and all offices, while the Shops
Act Inspector visited the non-food shops. The list of foods taken for sampling
shows one or two interesting results; for example, in one case nicotinic acid
and ascorbic acid were found added to mincemeat, which is not permitted under
the Meat Treatment Regulations 1964*
Education in food hygiene continued to expand - as it should - because it
is largely through education of the food handler and of the public to demand a
high standard of food handling that we shall make progress. The power to
prosecute is there, but it may well be that in the years to come it will be
the absence of prosecutions which proves that progress is being made.
There was an increase of activity in the courses for the certificate of
the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene, though during the year an
attempt to get a Diploma in Bakery Hygiene Examination held was abandoned
because of insufficient students to run the second course in September.
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