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7
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER
OF HEALTH
Health, Welfare, and Children's Department,
Hanover House,
Lyon Road,
Harrow, Middlesex, HA1 2 EH.
To His Worship the Mayor Alderman and Councillors of the London
Borough of Harrow.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my annual report on the health and
sanitary conditions of the district and on the health, welfare and children's
services provided by the Borough for the year 1969.
The highlight of the year was the progress made in the Council's
development plan for health and social services. It was mainly a "construction"
year in that the actual building works on the Adult Training
Centre, the Day Centre for the Younger Mentally Ill and the new community
home for the children's services were completed during the course
of the year. This allowed a start to be made on equipping and furnishing,
and the appointment of staff with the hope that the doors would be
opened to commence services early in 1970. In addition works under the
minor improvement schemes continued during the year. This made buildings
even more suitable for their everyday social work functions. More
rooms at Tanglewood Hostel were converted into single room units; the
approach road to the Junior Training School was widened and so improved
the transport arrangements for coaches conveying children; improvements
in the heating of the lodges at Breakspear House were completed
and finally an extensive and expensive programme of internal work in all
establishments was started in order to bring them up to the new standards
required by the Fire Prevention Officers.
Each year a return of proposed capital projects for the ensuing three
years is submitted to the Department of Health and Social Security. In
September, 1968, the return submitted contained three projects for each
of the years 1969/70, 1970/71 and 1971/72, but in March 1969 the Department
indicated that only two of the nine projects submitted could be
provisionally accepted for future loan sanction recommendations for the
year 1971/72—the main reason for this being the national financial
situation. On reflection the type of programme containing some three
capital projects a year for three years as previously submitted did not
appear to be an acceptable or realistic policy and only created abortive
work. Accordingly the Council decided this year to submit a contracted
programme for the years 1970/71, 1971/72 and 1972/73. This programme