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3
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
To the Chairman and Members of the Urban District Council
of Harrow.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit the Annual Report on the Health and Sanitary
Circumstances of the District for the year 1948.
The administration of the personal services has now passed into
the hands of the major authorities as local health authorities. Those
services then remaining to be administered by the Harrow Council as
the health or sanitary authority are largely those of the environmental
or impersonal character. This report, however, is not restricted to
particulars of these, but an attempt has been made to include information
of the many various other activities which are included in the health
services of a district.
The National Health Service Act which came into force on July
5th, 1948, brought about changes in the administration of the local health
services in three main ways. The biggest change followed on the transference
of the maternity and child welfare powers of the Harrow Council
to the Middlesex County Council. Most of these powers were returned
to be locally administered by the arrangement of the County Council by
which ten Area Committees, being sub-committees of the Health Committee
of the County Council, were set up. All of the Area Committees
except for this district which deals only with Harrow's services cover
more than one district. By the result of the Children Act, some of the
powers previously administered by the Harrow Council as maternity
and child welfare authority have passed not to the health department of
the County Council, but to the Children's Department, an entirely new
organisation. This department will deal with the deprived child, with
the foster child, and with the adopted child, and is the department which
will be responsible for the administration of the residential nursery
provided in the building that was the Honeypot Lane Isolation Hospital.
The second big change is the result of the transference to the Minister of
the hospitals. Included in these was the South Harrow Isolation Hospital,
previously maintained by the Harrow Council, but now forming part of
the general hospital service administered by the North-West Metropolitan
Regional Hospital Board. The third change is the result of the intention
to merge the treatment portion of the authorities' services with the
provisions of the National Health Service. At present this is resulting in