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TO THE
MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS
OF THE
BOROUGH OF SOUTHGATE
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to present the Annual Report of the Medical Officer of
Health for the year 1948.
Officially the present Annual Report covers the period 1st
January to 5th July, 1948, when the National Health Service Act
came into operation. For the purposes of clarity and continuity,
however, the various rates have been calculated for the whole of
1948. Information has also been supplied for the whole of the
year on those Public Health activities transferred to the County
Council. Without this information, it would have been very difficult,
indeed almost impossible, to present a health picture which
would be comprehensible. I felt that the Borough Council would
wish to have this information, even having regard to the fact that
the personal health services were removed from their control on
5th July.
It will not be necessary for me to state that the year 1948
marks a very important milestone in social medicine. The implications
of the National Health Service have been discussed so
often that no useful purpose would be served by a re-statement of
the changes introduced by the National Health Service Act and by
their impingement on the Borough Council as a health authority
and on the population as a whole. It will be sufficient to state
that the changes have been many and important, and that the
change-over presented a variety of problems. It can, I think, be
said that the translation was smoother than many people expected,
and that the work of public health has been carried on without
the slightest interruption. It now remains to be seen whether
the new concept of social medicine will be accompanied by the
same progress as has marked the past hundred years. We have
closed an illustrious chapter in the history of preventive medicine;
it is our sincere hope that the new chapter will give the same
abiding satisfaction.
The various changes which took place during the year in the
staff of the Public Health Department, most of them' brought
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