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6
services for old people. This Committee has been very active
during the year and much has been done to alleviate the sense
of loneliness from which the old people frequently suffer. The
problem of old people living alone is a grave one at the present
time. Many of them wish, above all else, to remain in their
own homes and should be encouraged to do so whenever
possible, but there may come a time when illness or accident
may supervene necessitating immediate removal to hospital.
Much good work is done, unobtrusively, by neighbours in
looking after old people living near them and, but for their
help in many cases, the plight of the latter would, indeed, be
grim. The work done by them and by the voluntary organisations
is worthy of the highest praise.
In regard to the Clean Food Campaign, the Food Traders'
Guild which was formed for the area of Erith, Bexley and
Crayford continued its operations during 1950. Codes of
Practice were approved for a number of food trades and this
part of the work is now reaching completion. A Clean Food
exhibition was planned in the latter part of the year and was
successfully held in May, 1951. It is hoped, in the near future,
to invite applications from food traders for membership of the
food traders' guild and the real work of improving standards
of food preparation, handling and sale will then begin. This
campaign is a long term effort in health education which will
entail a good deal of hard work on the part of the Sanitary
Inspectors and other members of the Health Department. It
is hoped, hoewver, that this work, while unspectacular and
slow moving, will result, in due course, in an appreciable
raising of standards of food hygiene in the Borough.
Effluvia from the river Thames continued to be a cause of
discomfort and exasperation to the people of the Borough
during the year, although the nuisance was not so pronounced as
during the previous year. The remedy, however, does not lie
with the Borough Council, who have given this matter considerable
attention, but with the London County Council, whose
£5,000,000 scheme to improve the sewage effluents from their
Barking and Crossness outfalls has been approved by the Ministry
of Health and is now in the early stages of implementation.
There appears to be no method of bringing this nuisance to an
early end and the remedy is, unfortunately, a long term one.
The housing problem, of course, constitutes the main
obstacle to full health in the Borough as in the rest of the
country, although much has been done during the year to improve
the position. The Health Department has to deal with