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HEALTH DEPARTMENT,
ELMFIELD HOUSE,
HIGH STREET,
TEDDINGTON,
MIDDLESEX.
June, 1970.
To : The Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
I have the honour to submit my Annual Report for 1969.
For over a century the discipline of Public Health has been striving with much
success to achieve certain essential basic requirements for a community, which are a
pure water supply, reliable sewage and refuse disposal system, clean food, sound shelter,
and clean air. These aims are now topical and fashionable, even at an international
level. The horizons have widened to take in the notion of conservation of the environment.
The study of the spread and control of infectious disease is a partnership between
the sciences of epidemiology and bacteriology. Society understands and agrees measures
to control contagion. Social medicine studies the epidemiology of the non-infectious
disease, the causation of sickness and the delivery of health care services.
Hospitals investigate and treat patients on either an in- or out-patient basis and
thus serve the community. The patient in a hospital bed, having been removed from
his own home, is cared for, nursed, and treated by professional staff to a very high
order. The hospital service has a high proportion of resources both in finance and
personnel. The community outside the hospital walls also cares for, nurses, and treats
sick people. The family doctors and your domiciliary staff undertake these tasks in the
patient's own home in collaboration with relatives, neighbours and friends. It is being
postulated that there is a newer discipline — that of community medicine, the parameters
of which are not clearly defined. A medical practitioner with appropriate
experience who advises the community, could be termed a community physician — the
physician to the community. In the seventies you will be hearing, discussing, considering,
and deciding, topics in which the community physician is closely involved.
Adolescence is that period in the life span between the child and the adult. Both
periods of life are well catered for by health services. Universities and other establishments
of higher education have student health provision. However, for the majority
of young people, a gap in health advice exists. The emotional problems of transition
from childhood to adulthood for some are difficult. So in mid-June a Youth Advice
Clinic at Kings Road Clinic, Richmond, was started. Contraceptive advice can be
given with appropriate ethical safeguards, if required, by the medical counsellor in
attendance.
Parents with two or three very young children have heavy emotional, social and
economic responsibilities for the establishment of a stable family. The advent of a
further pregnancy could convert this biological unit into "a family with problems". The
family structure may prevent the parents from seeking contraceptive advice at the
surgery or clinic. In these circumstances, if this expert advice can be given opportunely
in the home, then future social difficulties are avoided. Thus, in co-operation with the
Family Planning Association, such a service was commenced during the year.
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