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9
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the
Borough of Bromley.
Mr. Mayor. Ladies and Gentlemen.
During the course of a year's work, one naturally comes into
contact with a very large number of people of different types, and
I have often been astonished at the unnecessary anxiety some have
suffered through ignorance or erroneous knowledge about some
simple health problem. It is certainly one of the more satisfying
features of my work when I am able to correct some false
impression and see a great load of worry lifted from the mind of
the person concerned. Perhaps it is rather surprising that in these
days when there are so many sources of information, including
television, radio and libraries that such circumstances appear to
arise frequently, but to my mind it at least shows the need for and
importance of, one side of the work of the Public Health Department,
and the particular service to which I refer is Health
Education which properly employed can be of much value to the
layman. That this fact is appreciated by the public appears to be
borne out by the increasing number of requests for talks received
by the Department during the past year, and with the equipment
we now have some informative and, I hope, helpful and entertaining
lectures have been given by members of the staff. However, let
it not be assumed that the formal lecture or the informal discussion
is the only means of disseminating knowledge, for I am firmly of
the opinion that the Public Health Inspectors whose work brings
them into such close contact with the public, are one of our most
valuable assets in this very important task.
For the first time ever in an Annual Report, I have written
the words " Public Health Inspectors," for it was by an Act of
Parliament of 1955, that this title was created in place of the former
sanitary inspectors. To my mind, and this is a strictly personal
view, not by any means universally acceptable, the change is an
improvement giving as it does a much better idea of the many sided
activities of these very valuable officers.
The text of the report contains full details of the work of the
department, but there are one or two outstanding matters to which
I should like to refer in this letter. They are all matters affecting
every one of us, and what I have in mind are the Food Hygiene
Regulations, the commencement of a positive attack on anterior
poliomyelitis, and the Clean Air Act.