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6
Trends in social development play a considerable part
in the helpful guidance that can be given by the medical
department to its Local Authority. There are two instances
to which I would like to draw the attention of the Council
in the body of this Report which I think might be of
interest in this connection. One is the fact that the new
arrangements for dental service under the National Health
Service Act has produced a wealth of dental practitioners
in pleasant residential areas, such as Ealing, to the
detriment of other districts where there is no incentive
to reside and practice. This has meant that our school
dental service, which is of an extremely high standard,
is not having demands upon it in the same ratio as many
other less fortunate districts. There is a natural ten
dency for the ordinary parent nowadays to take a child to
a private dentist if one is available without diffi
culty and there is therefore a curious reaction a
sort of one upmanship against the local authority
service, although in fact, there can be no question of
the service being in any way inferior to that provided
through the private dental surgeon.
Again another instance of the trend of fashion and
social behaviour is the recent increase, noted in 1961,
of deformity of the feet of young people coming into the
teenage group. What is of particular interest is that the
deformity of the big toe, namely, hallux valgus, which we
have noted for many years arising among the 10 to 15 year
old girls, is now apparently arising to a much larger
extent among the similar age group of boys. Undoubtedly
this is due to the Italian style shoe which has swept the
fashion conscious teenagers, and only by a determined
effort to find a new approach to deal with this problem
shall we be able to find means of controlling it.
There are two other matters which I should like to
mention, one is the Exhibition, which was held in September,
and of which I am sure the Council were proud. The
other is the question of the handling of the growing
problem of the ageing disabled among the population.
Just as the decisions taken under the National Health
Service Act, 1948, caused considerable upheaval in the
Health Services in Ealing, it is inevitable that the
re-organisation of London, as promised by the Government,
must also involve the health services in a great deal of
re assessment and wide scale planning. Whilst the services
were basically continued by the County Council, through