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APPENDIX II.
REPORT BY THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH UPON
INSTITUTIONAL AND OTHER ACCOMMODATION IN
RECARD TO THE LOCAL COVERNMENT ACT, 1929.
Under the Local Government Act, 1929, Local Authorities are
required to make a survey of all the available accommodation in
their areas, and, if necessary, to supplement it so as to provide
for all the medical needs of its inhabitants. A further object of the
Act is to arrange as far as practicable that institutional medical
services shall be provided otherwise than under the Poor Law. It
is manifestly impossible to put forward any scheme which would
meet every contingency likely to arise within the next twenty
years; moreover, each Authority has its own peculiar problems to
face, and what is possible in one area may be quite impracticable
in another area.
In two previous Memoranda I have set out at some length a
broad outline upon which a careful and detailed consideration of
the future of the Health Services of the Borough should be based.
1 now submit for your information a futrher report showing :
(1) The hospital accommodation at present available, both voluntary
and municipal, and how it is variously allocated to different
diseases or type of disability.
(2) The situation, type and function of the various clinics in the
Borough.
(3) Work of the District Medical Officers.
(4) The extent of the specialist medical services.
(5) (a) Number of insured population under the National
ance Act.
(b) Number of Panel doctors.
(c) Number on Relief.
(d) Total population.
(e) Population under five years of age.
(f) School population.
(g) Number of West Ham residents dying in institutions not
within or belonging to the Borough.
(h) Hospitals in East Ham, Leyton, Walthamstow.
(6) Summary.
(7) Small-pox.
A careful study of the information set out under the various
headings of this report will reveal the fact that the same type of
disability is being treated in more than one separate hospital. This
seems inevitable at present where hospitals are scattered, are both
of the voluntary and of the Municipal type, and when all institutions
are unable to meet the demands upon them for beds.
All the Voluntary Hospitals have long waiting lists, and the
institutions taken over from the Guardians are grossly overcrowded.
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