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3
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF
HEALTH.
To the Chairman and Members of the Urban District Council
of Harrow.
Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Cock and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit the Annual Report of the Health and Sanitary
Circumstances of the District for the year 1946.
In last year's report an account was given of the development of
the local health services and each described in detail, so this year's
report will contain only the story of occurrences during the year under
review and the more detailed consideration of certain of the services.
In regard to the health services the local authority acts in its capacity
as local sanitary authority dealing with environmental hygiene, supervision
of foodstuffs, and the control, prevention and treatment of
infectious disease, as a welfare authority administering maternity and
child welfare including the midwifery service, and as an excepted district
administering as agents of the local education authority certain of the
school medical services. The National Health Service Act brings about
certain changes in the administration of these services. The personal
services—a product of this century—pass to the County Council, the
newly designated local health authority, but in turn the County Councils
lose to the regional boards—those bodies appointed by the Minister,
fourteen of them throughout the country—not only the hospital service
but those services which at present or in the future are to be based on
these hospitals, such as the tuberculosis service and the arrangements
for the treatment of venereal disease. The effect of these changes
which date from the 5th July, 1948, will be that Harrow reverts to its
duties of the sanitary authority of the latter part of the last century,
being directly responsible, of the health services, only for that of the
environment, the physical surroundings of the population, the protection
of foodstuffs and the control of infectious diseases. It will lose its
responsibility for the maintenance of the isolation hospital, as infectious
disease hospitals, along with others, become the responsibility of the
regional boards. It loses, too, its responsibility for arranging for the
immunisation of children against diphtheria, a service which passes
into the hands of the County Council, just as does the ambulance service.
Presumably no change is intended as yet in regard to the local administration
of the education services, so that for the time being, at least,
the Council, as an excepted district, will continue to act as agents for the
County Council in the administration of certain of the school medical
services. The maternity and child welfare services pass from the hands
of the Council to those of the County Council. The Act provides for
the making of regulations for the making of schemes of divisional
administration, delegating certain of the maternity and child welfare
functions of local health authorities on the lines of the devolution of
duties to excepted districts under the Education Act. The Council
then may possibly still retain some measure of responsibility for the
day-to-day administration of those services which it provides to-day as
the welfare authority. The functions of the County Council (the newly