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The tripartite Health Service is only to be unified by creating new divisions where there
were none before, and the separation of Health from the Local Authority with its Environmental,
Social and Education services means that administrators must start all over again building bridges
to minimise the effects of the barriers created, and local Authorities must think very seriously
where they are going to get medical services for their own staff.
The Council, by its plans to site the Area Teams of Social Workers in the new Health
Centres now on the way, has taken a most constructive step-ahead of most - in making links
shorter and easier and one would hope that the new Community Physicians will, like some
administrative staff, i n respect of Social Services or Education be physically placed to facilitate
those informal relationships between the services which are so fruitful. The system whereby
school doctors and nurses are related to specific schools in Waltham Forest - not always the case
elsewhere - is one which forms strong links with the staff of those schools and is a feature one
would like to see preserved.
And what of the Environmental Services? The work of the Public Health Inspectorate in
respect of the environment, one of the oldest pillars on which local government as we know it
has been built, is facing a future still, at the time of writing, quite undecided.
Waltham Forest is very seriously under-established on Public Health Inspectors at the
present time. The training and qualifications of the Public Health Inspector have only limited
application outside local government unlike the training for the great majority of the other local
Government specialities. In these circumstances i t is vital nationally, and in Waltham Forest in
particular, that the Public Health Inspectorate should emerge from all these changes with a strong
corporate identity and good career prospects. If it does not, progress on planning, housing
redevelopment and so on will be hampered or even halted while available staff concentrate as they
always must on those environmental duties which keep edidemics and pollution from robbing us
of any pleasure in our civilisation.
My annual report provides an opportunity each year for me to thank my own staff for all
their support, and also colleagues in other departments who give of their help and co-operation so
freely and this I do again most sincerely. In 1971 there was the traumatic experience for Health
Department staff of the setting up of the new Social Services Department and the transfer of
Grosvenor House to Education, with all the shifting of responsibilities and relationships that
these involved. I should like therefore particularly to thank colleagues in those departments for
their tactful help and understanding during that time, and place on record an appreciation of how
the whole process was carried out within an unbroken relationship of friendliness and goodwill.
I should like also to thank members of the Council - particularly of those Committees with
which this department is most involved - for all their help and interest. Special thanks are due to
Mrs.E.Bartram, Chairman of the Health Committee and to Mrs.P.K.Williams, Chairman for the first
part of the year for their encouragement and support.
I have the honour to be, Madam Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
Walth wirht
Medical Officer of Health
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