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to be responsible for the professional aspects and supervision of casework. Following from
this and the establishment in principle of area social work teams it will be necessary for the
establishment of four area team leaders of whom the first has already been appointed to coordinate
and allocate social work in the areas concerned. To assist the work with problem
families a senior social worker responsible to the Principal Social Worker has been designated
Homeless Families Officer.
The unsatisfactory organisation structure in the nursing services was also mentioned
and it has been agreed in principle that a Principal Nursing Officer to co-ordinate the work of
the Health Visitors, Midwives and Home Nurses should be established and the recent report
of the working party set up by the Department of Health and Social Security further recommends
this.
Turning to the environmental services it is recommended that the Deputy Chief Public
Health Inspector and Senior Public Health Inspector (Housing) posts should be amalgamated
and the future organisation should be a Chief Public Health Inspector with 3 Senior Inspectors
reporting directly to him.
As in all things what is achieved falls short of the ideal but the aim of management
should always be to provide the necessary services in the most efficient way.
B.F.Hampson
Chief Administrative Officer
THE ENVIRONMENT
PAST PRESENT FUTURE
''Suffering and evil are nature's admonitions; they cannot be got rid of;
and the impatient attempts of benevolence to banish them from the world
by legislation, before benevolence has learnt their object and their end,
have always been more productive of evil than good."
The above unctuous passage appeared in the "Economist" newspaper in May, 1848; it
was written in opposition to the first Public Health Act (1848) which resulted from cholera
and the efforts of Edwin Chadwick who had come to realise the facts about the revolting
insanitary conditions which had arisen from the Industrial Revolution and urbanisation.
Doctrine of one kind or another has been the cause of many of the woes of mankind, but
fortunately the English of this period were not entirely doctrinaires, and passed the Public
Health Act despite the prevalent laissez-faire theories and the dismal lopsided social economy
of the age. But the provisions of the Act were permissive rather than compulsory, and it was
some twenty years later before Local Government Boards were established to enforce the law
of building and sanitary reform.
Looking back over 38 years of service with six urban authorities in different parts of
the country, considerable progress has undoubtedly been made in the various fields of environmental
health, but there are no grounds for complacency concerning the need for further
improvement of standards in housing, food, air pollution and noise. There has been a gradual
movement away from the disease oriented concept of environmental sanitation. We now seek to
achieve an environment not only free from disease but one in which people can live in a state
of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing. The relationship between man and his
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