View report page

To: The Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Borough:
I have much pleasure in presenting this the first annual report on the Health and Welfare
Services of the London Borough of Hillingdon.
The Borough came into being on 1st April, 1965, through the amalgamation of the Borough
of Uxbridge and the Urban Districts of Hayes & Harlington, Ruislip/Northwood and Yiewsley &
West Drayton, and as well as continuing the services provided by those authorities, it undertook
the health and welfare services formerly provided by the Middlesex County Council. In some
respects, particularly in connection with the personal health services and the school health service,
there was a fair measure of continuity, as the new Borough is coterminous with the former County
Area, in which these services had been continuously administered since 1948. However, the integration
of these services, the mental health services, the welfare services and the environmental services
into a cohesive unit, to say nothing of the London Airport Health Control Unit (administered on
an agency basis), provided plenty of scope for ingenuity.
The first year, therefore, has been spent in welding the various sections into one efficient unit,
giving maximum of benefit to the public with the minimum of expenditure in terms of personnel
and money. Unfortunately, in the second half of the year shortages of staff, particularly in the
Environmental Section and in the Mental Health Section, and to a lesser extent in the Welfare
Section, made for difficulties in organisation which slowed down the programmed integration
considerably.
This report covers the health work carried out by the constituent authorities before amalgamation
in the first three months of 1965, as well as all the health and welfare services undertaken
by the new Borough for the remainder of the year The report is factual and does not attempt to
describe in minute detail all the various services covered—opportunity will be taken in subsequent
reports to do this for particular services when events justify such action.
The vital statistics, in general may be regarded as satisfactory, and to make comparison easy,
the national rates are given where appropriate. There is one matter to which attention should be
drawn—that of lung cancer. While the local total cancer rate is lower than the national figure,
that for lung cancer is higher. As modern medical opinion states that the risk of an individual dying
from lung cancer falls progressively with the length of time he has ceased smoking (and especially
cigarette smoking) the moral is obvious. This is a matter for each individual to make up his own
mind—the preventive measure necessary is there for all to see.
My grateful thanks are due to the staff of the Health and Welfare Department for their most
efficient work and loyal co-operation, and also to the local general practitioners and hospital staffs,
who have at all times been most helpful; as have the other chief officers and their staffs, who have
always offered their several skills when required.
Finally, may I say that without the full support and encouragement of the Chairmen and
members of the Health and Welfare Committees, and also other members of the Council, the work
of the Department would have been much more arduous.
O. C. DOBSON,
Medical Officer of Health.
2