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Public Health Department,
Town Hall,
Friern Barnet,
Middlesex.
The Chairman and Members of the
Friern Barnet Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present the Annual Report of
the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1953.
It will be appreciated that, as I did not take up
my duties until October 1953, most of the matters dealt with
in this report refer to the work supervised by my predecessor.
For that reason, I have confined my remarks to such matters
as should be brought to the attention of the Council, since
the few months of 1953 during which I had the privilege of
acting as a chief officer in Friern Barnet did not provide
me with sufficient opportunity to elaborate on such changes
as I had in mind to institute. I hope to be in a position
to report more fully on the work carried out during 1954,
since I am very conscious of the fact that the Annual Report
of the Medical Officer of Health is a valuable document,
which should present the health picture of the district as
a comprehensive and, one hopes, an attractive whole.
As the Council will be aware, it has the duty of
initiating and controlling the work of what is usually known
as environmental hygiene, including epidemiology. The
personal health services, which are operated under Part 3
of the National Health Service Act, 1946, come under the
jurisdiction of the Middlesex County Council, and are not
therefore the direct concern of the Urban District Council.
None the less, I am certain that the Council would wish to
know what is being done in the Area No.2,of which Friern
Barnet is a constituent district, as without this information
the picture will remain incomplete. Fortunately, I
am Area Medical Officer to Area No. 2, and therefore have
the great advantage of dealing with both types of service.
Recently, I presented to my Area Health Committee a brief
report on the work carried out in the Area during 1953.
With the permission of the County Council, I am including
this document as Appendix 1 to this Report.
Apart from this Appendix the work carried out in
Friern Barnet by the Middlesex County Council is referred
to in an uncritical fashion. It will readily be appreciated
that any other approach would be wholly undesirable.
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