View report page

In Feltham
Plans for the second and third Hostels for the Care
of the Mentally Disordered
Plans are progressing favourably for the building
of two additional hostels for the care of the
mentally disordered in the borough.
In Brentford
The Borough's third Health Centre
The existing clinic is in the process of being
adapted as a health centre for a group of six
doctors who have requested health centre
accommodation. When the centre is completed in
1967 the London Borough of Hounslow will have
three completed health centres at the rate of one
health centre for each year of its existence, a rate
equal to that achieved by the country as a whole
in the eighteen years preceding the year 1964.
In Chiswick
Improved temporary accommodation for Health
and Dental Clinics
The health and dental clinics will be moved early
in 1967 into improved though less spacious
temporary accommodation in the town hall so as
to clear the site for the provision of modern
health centre facilities so clearly needed in this
area.
In Hounslow
Administrative Centre for Health and Social
Service Departments serving whole Borough
I wrote in some detail in my last annual report
about the proposal for a comprehensive central
co-ordinating health, welfare and children's
centre situated adjacent to Hounslow Hospital at
92 Bath Road. Considerable progress had been
made and the plans were approved in principle
by the appropriate Ministries. The borough
architects are now working on the detailed
drawings and costings. Building is due to
commence in February 1968. This exciting project
with its twelve consulting suites for family doctors
may well show new ways of increasing communication
not only between the three parts of the
National Health Service but also between them
and the spcial services of the Welfare and
Children's Departments to the mutual benefit of
all concerned.
New buildings are, however, only part of the
story. New services such as cervical cytology have
commenced in existing buildings, and others such
as chiropody have been significantly expanded.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to
accommodate the additional staff necessitated by
the new services being developed.
In 1965 it was my endeavour to make my first
preface and annual report for the new borough
as comprehensive as possible in order to provide
a vade mecum of information and a base line
from which to move forward. I therefore
reported on the work of members of staff of the
many disciplines in the department and also on
the variety of health facilities which the council,
through the department of health, provides for
the citizens of the borough. This year every effort
has been made to reduce repetition to a minimum,
although some is inevitable in a report which
statutorily must be presented annually. I shall,
therefore, not make the customary comments on
the vital statistics which are fully shown elsewhere,
except to again comment on the continued
rise in illegitimate births, the percentage per live
births this year being 9.7 compared with 8.7 last
year and this year's national figures of 7.9.
Heart disease continued to be the leading cause of
death in the borough as indeed it is for the
country as a whole. It accounts for 740 (33%) as
compared with 739 last year.
Lung cancer accounted for 145 of the 468
deaths from cancer in the borough during the
year. Lung cancer as I said last year is an
eminently preventable disease and the advice in
regard to the dangers of smoking to both lungs
and heart and indeed other organs can only be
further emphasized. A distressing degree of
complacency, however, continues in the minds of
the general public, young and old alike, to these
dangers in this country particularly, and as
interest lately has turned towards the Common
Market perhaps a comparison of death rates and
life expectancies on an international basis with
other European countries will help to show that
there is need for far more to be done in this field
of prevention despite our National Health Service.
I shall quote only total death rates and life
expectancy rates because for obvious reasons
international comparisons of these rates are not
14