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36
The premises of manufacturers of rag flock and those used for storing rag flock require to be
licensed by the local authority; the fee and the renewal fee is £1 Os. Od. for a period not exceeding twelve
months.
The premises of persons carrying on business of upholstering, stuffing or lining of bedding, toys
and baby carriages, and others using filling materials specified in the Act, have to be registered; only one fee
of £1 Os. Od. is chargeable.
Seven premises were registered at 1st January, 1953, and 3 further registrations were approved
during the year. Three premises were removed from the register as they ceased to be used under the Act;
2 of these were registered prior to 1st January, 1953. At the 31st December, therefore, there were still
seven premises registered. There are no premises in Willesden which require to be licensed for the
manufacture or storage of rag flock.
Unfortunately the Act does not cover the re-making of an article, and dirty materials can therefore
be used in upholstering second-hand articles if they do not belong to the occupier.
Three samples of materials used were submitted to the analyst and they proved to be up to standard.
PET ANIMALS ACT, 1951
Pet shops must now have an annual licence on payment of a fee not exceeding 10/-. During 1953,
14 were licensed, and they were inspected by both sanitary inspectors and Shops Act inspectors.
Sanitary Inspectors inspect premises for adequacy of size, temperature, lighting, ventilation and
cleanliness, and of precautions for preventing spread of infectious disease.
STAFF MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS
Forty-one staff medical examinations were carried out by the Medical Officer of Health in 1953.
ACCIDENTS IN THE HOME
For some years now, lectures have been devoted to this problem in programmes for health education
in Willesden, but in order to extend this useful work it was felt desirable to examine the problem in
detail. A six-months' investigation was therefore planned, and agreement was reached at the Health Services
Liaison Committee (Central Middlesex Group) for the methods to be used by general practitioners, hospital
and local authority staffs. All general practitioners and the two local hospitals were asked to notify to the
Health Department any home accident that came to their notice, irrespective of its severity. Health
visitors then visited every case and completed a special inquiry form.
The response of the general practitioners to the appeal was fairly good—71 out of 118 agreed to
notify home accidents; but in practice only 19 actually complied with the request; one notified 22 and the
other 18 between 1 and 4 each. Of the two local hospitals, one a quarter the size of the other, the larger
notified 46 cases and the smaller 212.
344 accidents were notified, but as 9 were not home accidents and a report could not be obtained
in 51, the inquiry is based on 284 completed forms (see table I).
The age groups most seriously affected are children under 5 years (about 1 in 3 of all accidents)
and older people over 56 years (about 1 in 4), (see table II).
Boys had more accidents than girls, probably because they are usually more adventurous; women
had more accidents than men in the age groups 31—-55 because as housewives they are exposed to risks
of home accidents over longer periods of the day; more women than men over 56 years of age had accidents,
partly because of the higher proportion of women in these age groups (see table III).
Falls accounted for the largest number of accidents, almost half the total, and affected particularly
the under 5 group and those over 55. Burns and scalds came next, accounting for almost a quarter, with
the largest number in the under 5 group (see table IV). The most common causes for falls for the group
over the age of 15 were unexpected obstacles on the floor, and badly worn carpets and lino; with younger
children there were more falls from chairs and tables. Burns and scalds in children under 5 were usually
due to carelessness of adults. The main causes generally were falling into a fire (5), electric iron (4), hot
poker (3), and "upset hot water" in scalds in the 0—5 group.
The causes of all other accidents are clearly preventable and show an interesting change with increasing
age. Swallowing of foreign bodies ceases to be a factor after the age of 10, and in the later age-groups
a new factor arises in carelessness or mis-use of domestic instruments and tools, such as knives, choppers,
tin-openers, sewing machines ("stitched finger" !), razors, shears, scissors, mangles and broken sashcords.
Fractures resulted in a large proportion of the injuries (28 out of 141) from falls, and four deaths
in old people demonstrate their seriousness.
It was difficult to assess the severity of the injury by the duration of the treatment. Treatment lasted
approximately from one day to eight weeks, with an average time per accident of 5—■6 days (see table IV).
There were nine fatal accidents in the home in this period in the Borough, all in people over 60
years of age, as compared with only six fatal road accidents.
From this investigation it would appear that the annual home accident rate in Willesden is at least
29 per 1,000 with 1 -74 per cent, fatality, and an average of 5-3 days treatment per case. As a result of this
survey, an estimate can be made of the annual number of home accidents in Willesden; namely over 5,000,
with 18 deaths and a loss of time on treatment of working days and school days of nearly 30,000. That this
is probably an under-estimate is shown by the actual number of fatal accidents (other than road) caused in
the previous years, reaching almost 50. In 1952 they totalled four times as many as road accidents.
Clearly, there is much room for improvement in educating the population for the prevention of
home accidents, and useful material has been gained from this survey to direct publicity and attention to
preventable causes.