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(b) A person who supplies a drug or preparation in accordance with a certificate given under
this paragraph shall retain the certificate and mark it with the date on which the drug or preparation
was supplied and keep it on his premises so as to be at all times available for inspection.
FOOD HYGIENE (GENERAL) REGULATIONS 1960/62.
The annual survey of the River Thames passenger-carrying launches, was carried out by the
Board of Trade in the early part of the year. At the same time all necessary repairs, renewal of
fittings and the thorough cleaning and repainting of these launches is attended to. The fresh
water storage tanks are also cleaned and together with the distribution system, chlorinated prior
to use.
During the year, the first passenger carrying catamaran service in the United Kingdom
commenced operation on the river.
There are six floating catering establishments and twenty launches operating within the
Authority's District, to which the above Regulations are applicable. They were regularly inspected
during the year and the standard of food hygiene continued to be highly satisfactory.
Of a total of 52 water samples drawn from the launches and their watering points during the
year, adverse results were obtained on 12 occasions. In each case the source of contamination
was traced and eliminated.
In the year a total of 143 inspections were carried out under the Regulations. No proceedings
were instituted, minor infringements being corrected at the time of the inspection.
THE OPENING OF THE NEW QUARANTINE AND BOARDING STATION
AT DENTON HOSPITAL
The Corporation's new quarantine and boarding station was opened by the Right Honourable
the Lord Mayor on 15th December 1969.
Some two or three years ago it became apparent that serious consideration had to be given to
the question of the establishment of a new boarding station. This was made necessary by the fact
that the boarding station then in use, which was a converted hulk, the "Hygeia" lying in the river
off Gravesend, had reached the end of its useful life and would before long be unsafe. Furthermore,
the character of trade in the port was changing rapidly and the centre of gravity of the port was
moving downstream, which necessitated alterations to the quarantine control system to enable
greater control to be exercised over vessels entering the estuary of the river, but not coming up
as far as Gravesend.
After much discussion and consultation it was decided that the best results could be obtained
by going ashore to establish the new boarding station, and by establishing it in a place where the
following criteria might be met:—
1. There must be easy access to and from the river at all stages of the tide.
2. Such access must be privately owned by the Port Health Authority, because patients suffering
from infectious diseases would be landed there.
3. The boarding station would be the focus of the medical control system and would therefore
need to house the master set of the medical radio net, one end of the land-line link with the
Thames Navigation Service Operations Room at Gravesend and also, of course, the ordinary G.P.O.
telephones by which the radio messages passed via the stations at North Foreland and Niton are
received by the boarding medical officers.
4. It is obviously a great benefit for the cubicle accommodation to be near the boarding station,
particularly in foul weather which in the past has made travel between the old boarding station
and the hospital very difficult at times.
For all these reasons, the obvious choice was Denton Hospital which is about a mile down river
from Gravesend, on the South Bank.
Prior to 1948 the Corporation of London owned the Port of London Isolation Hospital at
Denton on the south bank of the River Thames, about one mile down-river from Gravesend. It was
at one time a very busy place, but following the decline in the number of cases of serious
infectious disease entering the port the hospital became progressively less fully occupied and the
number of buildings was reduced, while the standard of the remaining buildings was upgraded in
keeping with modern practice. As a result, when the hospital was handed over to the National
Health Service in 1948 it was made up of one large block, which included the administrative and
domestic elements and eight cubicles set in a separate wing, and a second block consisting of
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