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To the CHAIRMAN and MEMBERS of the COUNCIL.
Madam and Gentlemen,
It is my duty and pleasure to submit to you my second
Annual Report as your Medical Officer of Health and the sixteenth
such report since Orpington became an Urban District
in 1934.
With the close of the year 1949 ten per cent, of my duties as
Medical Officer for the County Health Services in Area No. 7
were transferred to a whole-time County Officer as a result of a
decision reached by the Health Services Committee of the County
Council. This action of the County Council destroyed at one
blow the link-up between the Personal Health Services and the
Environmental Health Services—a result which is, to my way of
thinking, not advantageous to either service. I can only hope
that I am wrong and that the change in County policy will
ultimately react to the manifest advantage of all concerned.
Dr. Carter-Locke began his duties as Deputy Medical Officer
of Health on January 1st, 1949—giving fifty per cent, of his time
as Deputy Area Medical Officer, an arrangement which has since
been cancelled.
I referred in my Annual Report of 1948 to two matters which
aopeared to me to be of paramount importance, viz., the number
of houses in the district without main drainage, and the question
of food hygiene.
During the course of the year the Council decided to undertake
a survey of cesspools. The information obtained from it
will be invaluable to the Public Health Department, and by next
year I hope to be in a position to give you a comprehensive report
on cesspools in general.
Mr. Crowe and the Sanitary Inspectors have now completed
their preliminary survey of cafes, restaurants and places where
food is prepared and handled, and the results of their investigations
are recorded elsewhere in this report.
The Council also decided, during the course of 1949, to adopt
the Model Byelaws with respect to the handling, wrapping and
delivery of food and the sale of food in the open air. These byelaws
should help to raise the standard of hygiene of food
delivery and sale in the open air. and the results of the advice
tendered to the cafes, etc., by the Sanitary Inspectors cannot help
but produce beneficial results if correctly applied. In view of
the very satisfactory co-operation of the traders concerned, one
feels that the investigation was well worth the trouble and time
involved,