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Talks and Lectures
Talks and lectures were given by the professional staff to groups and organisations
on a variety of subjects, including cervical cytology, home safety, child care
and food hygiene. References to talks and film shows given at schools and technical
colleges will be found under the School Health Services Section, and a report on
local activities during Mental Health Week appears under the item in this report
dealing with the Mental Health Service.
Mass Media
Posters dealing with health subjects were displayed on public notice boards
throughout the borough and in public buildings, shops, factories, doctors' and
dentists' surgeries, etc. Leaflets and booklets were distributed.
Supportive Publicity
The visits to the borough by the Blood Transfusion Service and the Mass
Miniature Radiography Service were marked by joint publicity efforts.
(See Statistical Tables 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24)
MENTAL HEALTH
It is the duty of the local health authority to provide Mental Health Services
under the Mental Health Act, 1959, and subject to the provisions of Section 28
of the National Health Service Act, 1946. The relevant sections of both Acts were
consolidated, with amendments, by the Health Services and Public Health Act, 1968,
with the intention of putting beyond doubt the power of local authorities to provide
residential accommodation, training centres, and other ancillary or supplementary
services for the prevention of all types of illness, including mental disorder, and
for the care and after-care of persons suffering from illness.
The shift of emphasis from hospital care to community care, introduced by
the Mental Health Act, 1959, is a continuing process and, coupled with an everincreasing
incidence of mental ill-health, constitutes a growing demand for these
services.
Nowhere is the development of community care services more evident than in
the provision of residential accommodation. For those recovering from mental
illness, increasing use continues to be made of the Council's "Windsmill" Recuperative
Hostel with proportionately less recourse to voluntary homes and hostels. The
Council has, as yet, no home or hostel for the mentally sub-normal, for which there
is an increasing need, but considerable progress was made towards the provision of
hostel accommodation for children and adults.
At the end of the year the total number of all classes of the mentally disordered
maintained in residential accommodation, whether local authority hostels, homes
60