View report page

REPORT OF THE CHIEF SANITARY INSPECTOR
I have the honour of presenting my sixth annual report on the
sanitary circumstances of the district.
Staffing difficulties, to which I referred in my last report,
continued for the major part of the year. Careful consideration was
given to a proposal that unqualified staff should be employed to
carry out some of the Sanitary Inspectors extraneous duties such
as Shops Act (hours of closing, etc.) and Petroleum Acts Administration,
but it was found that there was not sufficient work of this
nature to warrant a full-time appointment and it would, in any
case have entailed a certain amount of overlapping of duties and
dual visits to a large number of premises. No action therefore was
taken on the proposal. A more effective step to remedy the present
shortage of Sanitary Inspectors in industrial areas was the appointment,
towards the end of the year, of a Trainee Assistant. Although
there are no immediate benefits from such an appointment the
common acceptance of such a post as an essential part of the
establishment of all public health departments could make a vital
contribution to the problem. Whether or not a sufficient number of
youths could be persuaded to undertake a four-year training for a
job which is in part distasteful, in part dangerous and as a whole
of increasing complexity and which offers little material reward,
is another matter.
The clearance of unfit houses continued, and a programme for
future action which will remove the remaining unfit houses in the
district by 1959, was approved. Owing to the difficulties mentioned
in the previous paragraph it was not possible to recommence the
routine inspection of dwelling houses under the Housing Act.
A busy time for Sanitary Inspectors was foreshadowed by the
introduction into Parliament of the Clean Air Bill and the publication,
in the closing days of the year, of the Food Hygiene Regulations.
Although the Clean Air Bill does not contain all the recommendations
of the Beaver Committee it has enough "teeth"
to become a really useful piece of public health legislation and
brighten the prospect of an early improvement in the purity of the
atmosphere. The long awaited Food Hygiene Regulations are
another step forward in the fight against food poisoning and food
infections and by calling for better washing facilities for staff and
equipment, more satisfactory methods of storing those foods most
likely to be dangerous and a higher standard of personal hygiene
on the part of the persons engaged in handling food, cannot fail to
have a beneficial effect.
The following report on the work of the Sanitary Inspectors is
set out under four headings :
(1) Sanitary Administration—including inspection of the district,
complaints, notices served, legal proceedings, offensive
trades, atmospheric pollution, drainage, keeping of animals,
rodent control.
11