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To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the London Borough of Hounslow
I have the honour to present my seventh Annual Report on
the health of the people living in the London Borough of
Hounslow and on the health services provided by the
Borough Council as local health authority.
The ten year programme for health service provision
formulated in 1965 has been adhered to and in fact extended
over the succeeding years. This statement may be confirmed
by perusal of the table immediately following this preface.
During the year The Rt. Hon. Sir Keith Joseph Bt MP,
Secretary of State for Social Services, honoured us by
officially opening the large health centre at 92 Bath Road,
Hounslow, on Thursday, 1st April, 1971. His visit gave
considerable and much needed encouragement particularly
to those of us who belong to the many health disciplines
who work in the health services which take place outside
the more dramatic arena of hospital provision.
On Friday, 30th April, 1971, Sir Alan Marre KCB, who
had recently been appointed Parliamentary Commissioner
for Administration from his post as Second Permanent
Secretary of the Department of Health and Social Security,
opened the attractive smaller health centre at Maswell Park
and gave the audience an enlightening resume of the
historical background of health centre provision and a
revealing glimpse into the future as he saw it.
During the year as a result of the Local Authority Social
Services Act, 1970 certain health functions were passed on
to the new Social Services Department and we would wish
to thank the staff who were transferred for their work in
the Health Department and wish them well in their new
roles in the future. The rapid changes and uncertainties
occasioned by this unification of the previously fragmented
social work services on a date preceding the proposed
unification of the National Health Service and the
reorganisation of local government outside London has not
made it easy for the staff of all disciplines to adapt to new
and unfamiliar situations. Inevitably some services have
suffered initial set backs and this is perhaps particularly so
in regard to the borough s community psychiatric services
as the borough had, since 1965, led the field. We are
optimistic that the newly formed services will be a success
but meanwhile it will require considerable effort,
understanding and mutual co-operation between a'l
disciplines and departments if adequate services are to be
provided to the community during the interim period
before the new area health authorities are established and
their services are intimately interwoven with those of the
new Social Services Department. It is indeed unfortunate
that health and social services will be provided by two
different authorities with different administrations and
different financial resources for the immediate future and
we look forward to the time when, for the sake of the
community they serve, they will be administered again by
one authority.
Family planning and the reasonable containment of
population increase in our finite world are duties that this
generation must not shirk if future generations are not to
point an accusing finger at us for the intolerable misery and
degredation that our failure would inevitably cause.
Therefore we must all contribute in however small a way
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each in our own neighbourhoods if the larger matrix, both
nationally and internationally, is to be allowed to unfold in
the voluntary manner that we would all wish for. In this
borough and neighbourhood preparations are therefore
now in progress for the provision of a comprehensive free
family planning service to consolidate the gains that had
been made through the expansion of the family planning
services following the 1967 Act and also the introduction in
the borough of the free domiciliary family planning service
which has proved such a success.
The assessment centres for the physically handicapped
at Martindale and for the deaf at Heston have continued
their excellent work and it is interesting to note that at the
first mentioned centre the physiotherapists have carried out
some 11,182 treatments on in-patients and out-patients this
year which is 3,201 more than in the previous year.
All the major research projects mentioned in my preface
last year have made considerable progress and the Joint
Obstetric Child Health Project, supported by a grant of
£42,000 from the Department of Health and Social Security
is reported on in the body of the report, and the project
surveying hepatitis in the community has now been
accepted by the Department of Health and Social Security
and is to be financed to the tune of £30,000. Both these
surveys and other smaller ones too many to enumerate are a
constant reminder that co-operation between the local
health authority, hospitals and general practitioners is
perfectly possible and highly fruitful despite the so-called
insuperable barriers of the present tripartite National
Health Service. We hope that the impending unification
will make such co-operation even easier in the future.
I would like to draw attention to an extraordinarily
interesting account of the subtle ways that typhoid can
infiltrate itself into people s lives given by Dr. Megan E
Wilkinson, deputy medical officer of health, and Dr. D A
McSwiggan, consultant microbiologist at the Central
Middlesex Hospital, which is included in the body of the
report by the kind permission of the journal Community
Medicine which originally published the paper. This story
sounds straightforward when seen in print but occasioned
much detective work of a very high order from the two
authors during a considerable period of time.
The borough continues to receive many visitors who are
interested in its occupational and student health services.
Our occupational health nurse is, we understand, still the
only one working in this capacity in local government.
Her work load is now so heavy that we wonder how we
survived without her in the past and in fact how other
authorities continue to do so.
Once again I would like to place on record my thanks to
the family doctors, the hospital consultants and staff and
the members of the many voluntary organisations who
have helped this department in so many ways during the
year. I also wish to thank the chief and senior officers of
the other departments of the borough for their continued
co-operation and prompt attention to our many requests.
I would like to thank my deputy Dr M E Wilkinson and
Mr J M Murphy my chief administrative officer for their
very considerable support.