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As can be seen from Table 2, 78 cases during the year were considered urgent enough to be referred direct to the
Housing Tenancy Selection Panel on medical grounds. The Health Department has a growing list of such urgent
cases waiting to be heard by the Panel, and there are still many who have been approved by the Panel but are
waiting for suitable accommodation to become available. The great need for ground floor and warden assisted
flats for elderly and disabled people continues to delay the rehousing of these very needy medical cases.
During 1971 a new scheme for the assessment of medical cases has been adopted. Previously, any housing
applicant who felt he had medical grounds for priority was asked by the Housing Department to obtain a
supporting letter from his general practitioner. This resulted in general practitioners being inundated with requests
for letters and put them in the difficult position of not really being able to refuse a request, even though they
might feel the applicant's medical claims were not very strong.
Under the new scheme, which has been adopted by several London boroughs, housing applicants who think they
have medical grounds for priority are given a form to fill in stating their medical reasons, and the names of their
general practitioners and/or hospital specialists. These forms are passed to the Health Department for assessment
by a Senior Medical Officer and, in many cases, a judgment of the medical priority can be made without further
delay. If and when the Medical Officer requires additional information he will write to the general practitioner or
hospital specialist concerned, who can write an unbiased and more medically detailed reply, knowing that it will
be sent confidentially direct to the Medical Officer of Health.
The scheme was implemented in August, 1971 and so far seems to be working well. From the Medical Officers'
point of view it reduces the number of time-consuming home visits, because more accurate information can be
obtained from the general practitioner.
A growing number of Council tenants who request transfers of housing on medical grounds, are referred each year
to the Health Department by the Housing Department. A considerable number of these are from people who find
life in a tower block of flats intolerable, and develop such symptoms as depression, nervous instability,
claustrophobia, fear of heights and fear of lifts. While these cases are considered sympathetically they are not
usually given very high priority on medical grounds because there are other cases with well-defined physical
ailments who need to be helped first. As can be seen from Table 2 159 cases were recommended for a transfer on
medical grounds in 1971.
The fact that there are so many requests for transfer from people with "nervous" disorders, very often supported
by their general practitioners, indicates that high-rise blocks of flats are not the ideal way of solving the housing
problem.

* These figures include second investigations carried out during the year
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