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Telephone:
Hornchurch 52555
Health Department.
Billet Lane,
Hornchurch.
To: The Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the London Borough of Havering.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I present my report on the work of the health and welfare
department of the Borough for the year 1970.
Re-organisations and Reports:
This report covers the last year of the combined health
and welfare department of the Council. The new social services
department takes over responsibility for the welfare, mental
health, home help, day nurseries and ex-Children's Department
services on April 1st 1971, while the control of infectious diseases
community maternity, and health visiting, nursing, child and
school health, and the various environmental health services
continues in the separate health department.
In 1974 there will be still further changes as a result of
unification of the National Health Service, with the personal
health services joining up with general practice and hospital
services, leaving the environmental services with local government.
All these changes, with many details still to be decided,
are having a depressing effect upon morale, and causing very
serious recruitment problems. The prevention of disease, relief
of disability, control of the environment and provision of community
medical and nursing services are too important to be allowed to
languish in uncertainty. Further detailed reports and discussions
are promised, and although these may confirm what has frequently
been stated, that community and preventive medicine will receive
greater emphasis in the future than in the past, uncertainties and
anxieties will persist until the future pattern is clarified.
Health of the Borough in 1970:
For the fourth year in succession no woman died in
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