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10
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the
Borough of Bromley
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
In submitting my 23rd Annual Report to you covering the
year 1947, I do so at a time when the Health Service as administered
by the Local Authority during those 23 years is in the
process of administrative change. The Local Authority of
Bromley will no longer administer the services for the care of
Mother and Child which, on the appointed day, will, with other
Part III Services of the National Health Act, 1946, be passed to
the County Authority. Bromley will thus lose the keystone of
their Health Services, and will be left with the administration
of Enviromental Service and the Health of the School Child.
That our services have been successful is not to be gainsaid,
for this final year of the Maternity and Child Welfare
Service administered locally gives us a remarkably low infant
mortality rate of 19.11, as compared with a rate of 58.0 in 1924,
and a maternal mortality rate of 0.74 per 1,000 births, as compared
with 4.9 in 1924. No service to the health of the public
can be successful if it does not receive the approval and support
of the public, and it is this support which we have gained over
the years.
It would be quite unfair if I did not take this occasion of
paying tribute to the Committee, the voluntary workers, and to
the doctors, health visitors, and clerical staff, who have been
unstinting in their enthusiasm to make Bromley the healthy
town it is.
The Report follows the usual lines, and is, in the main, a
collation of statistical facts affecting the many branches of the
Department's work: with it is a report made to the Education
Committee which must be taken into consideration with the
Report as a whole, for no Health Service can be successful unless
all factors affecting the health of the individual are moulded
into one united effort.
The health of the school child is dependent on the circumstances
of the child during its first five years of life. Likewise,
the health of the under five is dependent on its life before birth,
the health of its father and mother, and even its forebears. The
whole is dependent on the environment of the family at home,
at school, and at work. Unless one takes all these circumstances