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causes of notifiable industrial diseases and gassing cases, and carries out
periodical medical examination of workers engaged in the dangerous
trades. The surgeon for most of this district is Dr. D. V. Morgan-Jones,
7, Welbeck Road, West Harrow; for Edgware, Stanmore and Kingsbury
he is Dr. E. E. Stephens, 3, Sefton Avenue, N.W.7.
In the last few years many authoritative bodies have surveyed the
needs and the structure of the present industrial services. To-day, there
are engaged in the various aspects of the health, safety and conditions of
work of those engaged in factories, a variety of agencies which include
the public health service, industrial medical officers, and the general
practitioner service under the National Health Service. One of the
chief demands seems to be for the general application and extension to
industries throughout the country of industrial health services of the
kind irregularly distributed among a comparatively few industries.
There is no questioning the advantages to employers and employees alike,
of an industrial health service. Such a service should be made available
as soon as possible for all industries, and should be extended to cover
non-industrial employment. Some seem to see the picture of a future
industrial health service embracing all aspects of health created as a
separate entity and controlled by a central department which will not
necessarily be that concerned primarily with the administration of the
health services. Some bodies consider the industrial health service
should be an integral part of the National Health Service in its fullest
sense. The Dale Committee which was set up to examine the relationship
between the preventive and curative health services provided for
the population at large and the industrial health services which make a
call on medical manpower considered there should be a considerable
measure of co-ordination between the various agencies—medical, legislative
and administrative—at present providing health services for
industry.
The types of medical service that might be needed will vary at different
factories. The best arrangement might not be that by which all the
services are provided by the same authority. For instance research into
health hazards and into the scientific aspects of working conditions is
something which could be done only by a special scientific research
organisation. There are the treatment and rehabilitation services
including emergency treatment and first-aid which are of the kinds of
service also provided under the National Health Service. In addition
there are certain aspects which are of the same pattern as some of the
health services provided by local authorities. These environmental and
preventive services include replacement and retirement examinations,
routine medical examinations of fitness for employment, the medical
aspects of job selection, the maintenance of health standards in all places
of work and the routine investigation of non-industrial hazards together
with the application of methods of prevention. While an artificial
division between medical treatment of the man at work and at home is
undesirable, there is nothing to be said against the preventive health
aspects of the man at home and at work being dealt with as distinct
problems, and this work could well be taken on by the health staff of
the health authority in association with the local factory inspector.