View report page

3.
The Metropolitan Boroughs (Organisation & Methods) Committee's team have
spent a considerable part of the year in an effort to render the services more
efficient, and it is hoped to implement their suggestions during 1958.
Fortunately they found little to criticise in the Health Department itself.
The extreme shortage of Public Health Inspectors has made 1957 a very
difficult year for those remaining, and has meant that the Chief (Mr.Grant) and
the Deputy Chief(Mr.Marshall) have worked heavily on routine matters as well as
doing their more normal duties. The Inspectorate have perforce been compelled
to cease visiting measles and whooping cough patients' houses, but fortunately
these diseases have been very mild this year. The number of 'complaints'
received has also been smaller, but we cannot hope that this will continue.
At the same time an increase in removals to new property, and of dumping on
vacant sites, (not to mention the Rent Act'.) has entailed even more work than
usual, so that more staff is really essential, the staff being at the moment
scarcely more than one-third of establishment.
With the passing of the Clean Air Act, the selecting and surveying of a
proposed Smoke Control Area gave the Inspectorate additional work, but
fortunately some of this could be done (and was quito well done) by our Trainee
and Student Inspectors, so that the Council now awaits the Ministry's approval
for an area of 9 acres to be a Smoke Control area (details and acknowledgments
on p. 34 This smoke control area, together with the 2623 new flats erected
by the Borough Council since the war (all of which comply with the Clean Air
Act), together with the flats erected by the L.C.C., which comprise between
them more than half the homes in the Borough, should enable Shoreditch to become
still less polluted by smoke in future years.
Single stack drainage in the Borough is reflecting great credit on the
ingenuity of the Chief and Deputy Chief Public Health Inspectors (p.36 ).
The erection of new flats has proceeded so rapidly in the Borough, that
our 5 year programme was completed early, so that no representations for slum
clearance remained to be made during 1957.
The Rodent section continued the unique form of sewer treatment which was
so successful last year, and results were even better (p. 42 ) as was the contract
work with business firms.
My final pleasant duty is to thank the whole staff for their unfailing
support during the whole year, and to acknowledge with thanks the help and
courtesy 3hown by members of the Council. Thanks are also due to my oolleagues
serving both Shoreditch and many other authorities throughout the country.
Yours faithfully,
B. BROADBENT
Medical Officer of Health.