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17
HEALTH CENTRES
Since their inception, the School Medical Service and the
Maternity and Child Welfare Service have developed along the
lines of healthy living organisms by showing marked growth and
expansion, often in directions which could not have been foreseen
accurately. Requirements have been met as they have arisen,
systems have been devised piecemeal, and arrangements have often
been necessarily of a makeshift nature. Unfortunately the accommodation
and equipment adequate for the operation of two such
rapidly increasing services have not increased pari passu with the
developments in the service.
In 1933 there was opened at Leyton Green a Joint Health
Centre to accommodate the clinic health services for the western
half of the Borough; and in 1935 a similar Joint Health Centre
was opened at Park House, Granleigh Road, to serve the eastern
half of the area. When they were built, these two health centres
were considered to provide the most modern facilities for the joint
health services; but even in the intervening period of twelve years
which has elapsed since their erection, the scope and nature of
municipal health services has undergone such expansion that these
two buildings are no longer adequate for present day needs. During
the war years both these health centres sustained substantial war
damage on several occasions; but, in spite of this, they continued
to fulfil their purpose.
Early in 1946 the Committee concerned began to consider the
acquisition of a suitable site for the erection of a new Combined
Main Health Centre to accommodate all municipal medical and
ancillary health services, along with the possibility of the provision
of accommodation for the health centre activities envisaged in the
new National Health Service Act (then a Bill).
In June the Medical Officer of Health submitted the following
summary of the proposals.
National Health Service Act—Summary of Proposals
Scope of the Service.
The Act provides for the following kinds of health services :
1. Hospital and specialist services. These cover
in-patient and out-patient services, the latter including
clinics and dispensaries operated as part of any specialist
service. The advice and services of specialists of all kinds
are also to be made available where necessary, at Health
Centres and in the patient's home.