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LIAISON
By Dr.C.H.Phillips, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., D.P.H.
Deputy Medical Officer of Health.
Public Health is a combined operation which depends for its success on the co-operation
of the public and social services, both statutory and voluntary. It is an ever-changing field
in which adaptations have to be made as medico-social circumstances alter. A department cannot
possibly 'go it alone' if it is to provide the maximum benefit and keep abreast of new developments.
Liaison with Local Authorities.
This relates mainly to the prevention of infectious disease but also to some extent in
the maternity and child welfare, school health, and after-care services. It is particularly
important that epidemiological information should be readily exchanged between local authorities,
more especially adjacent authorities. For example, the Health Department compiles a weekly
return, prepared from information received from neighbouring local authorities, of the incidence
of poliomyelitis over the whole area, and this Information is circulated to the Medical Officers
of Health concerned so that they are aware of the poliomyelitis picture week by week. Close
co-operation is,also maintained with other Medical Officers of Health regarding the movement of
contacts of Infectious disease and of outbreaks, such as food poisoning, to enable suitable
action to be taken towards the prevention of further cases. Dossiers of young children attending
local authority clinics and school children are freely interchangeable between local authorities
when people move from one place to another. Likewise, information regarding mentally defective
persons moving into or out of the Borough is made available to the local authority into which the
person has moved. Vaccination and immunisation cards are also forwarded to othajviocal authorities
when a child moves, so that the new authority will know exactly what is the immunisation state of
the child.
Liaison with the Hospital Services.
A close and friendly relationship has been maintained at all levels with the hospitals in
the area and also with Goodmayes and South Ockendon Hospitals.
Consultants of the Regional Hospital Board are employed for part of their time in local
health authority services which ensures easy referral by medical officers to the consultants of
oases about whom they are concerned. This close working relationship is particularly evident
in the child welfare and school health services where children are readily seen by the
paediatrician, Orthopaedic specialist, ear, nose and throat, or eye specialist, or by a
psychiatrist at the child guidance centre as the occasion arises. Except in certain agreed
conditions a child is not referred to a consultant without the general practitioner's agreement.
A copy of the consultant report is later sent to the general practitioner. A number of hospitals
send to the Medical Officer of Health copies of reports to the general practitioner on children
who have been in-patients.
Hospital almoners and the staff of the maternity units give much helpful co-operation in
relation to out-patients as well as in-patients and in making arrangements for the training of
Part II pupil midwlves taking their domiciliary training. The resent arrangements by which
hospital student nurses are given some insigjit into the local health authority service and some
teaching by local health authority officers augurs well for future understanding and good will
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