View report page

9
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the
Borough of Bromley.
Madam Mayor. Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the duty, for the twenty-seventh consecutive year, to report
to you on the work of the Department and on the health of the
Borough during the year 1951.
So far as the facts are before me, Bromley continues to show a
state of good health, there having been no serious outbreaks of illness
or infectious disease. The death rates continue to show improvement
on those of England and Wales, while the birth rate is only one per
1,000 less. These facts are to be expected in a good residential area
which is comparatively free from industries and where there is only
a very small proportion of the adult population classified by the
Registrar General in the lowest Social Grades IV and V. The infantile
mortality rate made a sudden drop and reached the very low figure of
12 per 1,000 births. One awaits with interest the full returns of the
Census taken in the early part of the year, when we shall be able to give
the age distribution of the population. The fact is that the population
of England and Wales is not only increasing in numbers and leading to
housing problems and all the problems of health that overcrowding
brings with it, but the population is also becoming top-heavy in the
older age groups. It is therefore all the more important that we keep
the Public Health Services at their maximum efficiency and maximum
provision, and make prevention of disease a priority over the treatment
of disease, which to-day is becoming an ever-increasing financial burden
to the country. The time is overdue when attention should be given to
the type of service that should be given, e.g., the Health Services to the
mother and child, formulated some thirty years ago, are still operating
to that pattern. It may be that part of the energy and time given to
these services may well be transferred to the aged, and to the prevention
and control of those illnesses that make for an unhappy old age.
The progressive improvement in the handling and distribution of
foodstuffs is the result of intensive action by the department over
recent years. The trader in food is giving us full co-operation, without
which the task would be doubly difficult. I am sure that, when the
public themselves exercise care and protection of all foodstuffs in the
home and in the cafes and foodshops, the danger of food poisoning
will be largely eliminated.
In spite of intensive activity of the housing authority, there still
remain 3,400 homes with more than one family. Young married