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Public Health Department,
Elmfield House,
High Street,
Teddington.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Borough of Twickenham.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit my Annual Report on the health and
sanitary conditions of the Borough, together with the statistical tables for
the year ending December, 1949.
The year 1949 is the first year following the introduction of the National
Health Service Act in which sanitary and environmental hygiene have been
dealt with as separate functions of the Borough Council. In this report,
therefore, I make no mention of the many allied services, such as midwifery,
maternity and child welfare, health visiting, supervision of foster children,
adoption of children, home helps, immunisation, and day nurseries, which
were formely administered by the Borough Council and now by the County
Council.
The health of every one of us is an indivisible whole; we are all subject
to the stresses and strains of life, to the influences for good or evil of those
with whom we associate, to the influences of our environment, the food we
eat, the education we receive, and the pleasures and sorrows which come
our way. A person is usually ill because his innate constitution cannot
withstand the attacks made on it by the numerous adverse influences in his
environment. These influences may be, for example, infection from another
person, a lack of disease-resisting food or ignorance of the principles of hygiene,
or some maladjustment to persons at home or at work.
The general practitioner and hospital sections of the national health
services are mainly directed to the alleviation or cure of established sickness;
they pay little regard to preventing that sickness. Yet the saving in money,
time and misery would be enormous if all gave more attention to prevention.
The people engaged in each branch of the service see only their own narrow
function; they have almost no opportunity of viewing the problem of
sickness or good health as a whole. The services run by the hospital boards,
executive councils, county and borough councils are completely dissociated
by the inherent faults of the administrative framework set up under the Act.
I think that is a great pity. I hope some day Parliament may be induced to
bring about a better form of liaison.
Nevertheless, the sanitary and environmental services of this Borough
are very much alive and doing excellent work. They are preventing untold
danger, discomfort and illness amongst the families of the town. The remainder
of this report gives some account of what is being done.
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