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THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS OF THE LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM
FOREST
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit herewith my report for the year 1965 concerning the factors
affecting the health of the population, and the work of the department, including the School Health
Service. I am grateful to other chief officers and individuals for their contributions where these
have been appropriate to complete the picture.
This report provides a commentary on the year, and statistics for reference. More comprehensive
information on the services available is contained in the separate "Health and Welfare
Services Handbook".
Though the first three months of the year were before the assumption of control by
Waltham Forest Council, the former three boroughs and associated County areas have now lost
their former significance and this report and its statistics relate to the calendar year for the whole
area except in a few stated instances where this has not been feasible. On the other hand,owing
to the immense upheaval caused by the change over, this as a first Annual Report will not be a
proper base line for future years. This is particularly so in the field of Mental and Social Welfare
as these had no clearly related counterpart in the area before April.
Modern man expects expert services from his servants and takes almost for granted that
a team of different specialists will attend to his car when it requires attention. He would be the
first to accept that a human being is definitely more complex than a car, but may naively think
that one individual is capable of being proficient in all the different types of expertise now
existing in the human sciences. Yet people are single individuals. The answer to the dilemma
presented by the display in one needy person of a complex of factors requiring a variety of
knowledge and understanding is the integrated team of specialised workers. There is now too
much knowledge for any one person to have it all.
The evils of too many visitors to the same house, or of poor co-ordination between social
work departments, are made to appear much worse than they generally are by occasional glaring
cases. But they are real nevertheless. The solution lies partly in organisation, and the merging
of Health and Welfare is a big step in this direction. More fundamental is the question of
personal attitudes of social work staff and the development of trust between them. This takes
time to grow, and may not grow even then without a big element of training.
The local nature of the new local governmental structure has been a great help, and we
have made opportunities wherever possible to encourage this co-operative integrated approach by
the staff. Trust grows as people get to know each other, but constant conscious effort is required
to mitigate the ill-effects of the formal and fragmentary communications imposed on us by the
scattered and sometimes awkward buildings inherited from a fundamentally different situation.
Training of staff has taken on a new urgency, both to bring up new young staff in the cast
of thought involved in the team approach, and to increase the total number of trained workers.
The Council will in time feel the benefit of the progressive line they have taken in this respect.
The strong lead being given by the London Boroughs' Training Committee is setting the pace
nationally and we are fortunate indeed to be able to join a number of London Boroughs who are
setting themselves standards of high quality in their staff. In time this will create an image of
the borough which attracts the best people.
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