View report page

5
Mr. Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors,
In presenting the Annual Report for 1961 I have felt
it desirable to take an overall picture of trends that
are operating in several phases of social life in particular
relationship to medical problems. The Government's
decision to press forward with the re-organisation of
London Local Government makes it quite clear now that we
face, within the next few years, a major re-organisation
of all the services in the Borough and among these of
course, the health services must play an extremely important
part. It is of value to you to know those problems
that are facing us and the trends that are appearing out
of our statistical surveys and contacts with the national
health services in the Borough.
In general we must be glad that our high rate of
immunisation and our widely conceived services provide us
with a basic machine capable of extremely efficient work
no matter what administrative problems may confront us.
We are fortunate in having capable officers and I have no
doubt that the transition to County Borough Powers will
not be as difficult as it might have been had we not
previously been operating many of these services prior to
1948. There has, of course, since that time been a change
in the general plan, particularly in regard to hospital
services, welfare services, and the mental health services.
These I think should be linked in as closely as possible
with our own health services to everyone's advantage. The
housing of the various public health services that will
be operating together can only be considerably enhanced
when the buildings from which the services will be operating
are linked closely together, if possible in one unit.
Since I, myself, have now been in the health service for
nearly 40 years I can appreciate only too well the vital
importance of close linkage of these related services
under one medical control. I would strongly urge the
Council to place in the hands of a capable and efficient
administrative chief officer all the health services that
can possibly be linked together as one unit. There should,
I am sure, be no separation into other departments of
such services as mental health, welfare, children's
department, or basic environmental services such as Clean
Air, Clean Pood and housing defects; all of these are so
closely related to the work of health visitors, nurses,
midwives, and the assistant medical officers of the Authority.