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6
HEALTH DEPARTMENT.
MUNICIPAL OFFICES,
380 OLD STREET,
EC1 V9LS
Telephone: 01-986 3123
To His Worship the Mayor, and the Aldermen
and Councillors of the London Borough of Hackney
Mr. Major, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present to you my Annual Report for 1970 on the health
of the borough.
The overall staffing position in the Department continued much the same
throughout the year. However, there was an improvement in the key sector of
health visitors; this was largely brought about by the improvement in the intake
of student health visitors during the previous year. The students qualified
towards the end of 1970 and have now commenced their duties. This has enabled
the Department to re-assess its approach to the attachment of health visitors
to general practitioners. A series of discussions with interested general
practitioners has taken place during the year and, although nothing had been
concluded by the end of 1970, at the time of writing this Report, attachment had
taken place to one of the health centres and to certain practitioners in the
Borough. The position as regards the recruitment of nursery staff remained much
the same as reported in the Annual Report for 1969. I can only reiterate what
I said then that in view of the importance of day nurseries in a borough such
as this the need to attract recruits to this service is vital. The Health and
Administration Committees have done their best in the way of giving incentives,
but the salaries negotiated nationally by the Whitley Council are such as to
mitigate against any local efforts to obtain recruits to the nursery service.
The rewards offered locally by industry and commerce are far in excess of that a
nursery nurse can expect for undertaking a difficult and arduous job, and it
is perhaps today asking too much of young girls to have nothing but an altruistic
approach to this vital service.
The senior staff of the Department remained very much the same with the
exceptions of the Chief Administrative Assistant and the Co-ordinating Nursing
Officer. Mr. Pike, who had given many years of good service to the London County
Council, and had been the Chief Administrative Assistant of the Department since
its inception in 1965, retired in July. Similarly, Miss Arrow, the Co-ordinating
Nursing Officer, who had given a lifetime to the care of mothers, young children
and school children in the London area, was the Divisional Nursing Officer in
Division 4 of the London County Council and became the Borough's first Coordinating
Nursing Officer in April 1965.
The population of the Borough continues to decline. This is probably due
partly to emigration from the Borough and partly to a continuing decline in the
birth rate. The fall in the birth rate in the Borough is in line with the
national decline, although the rate of decline within Hackney is probably slightly
higher than the rate of the national decline. Although the birth rate has
declined, the number of marriages during the last year showed a marked increase.
The illegitimate birth rate within the Borough has again shown an increase and
the rate is well over double that for England and Wales. However, this should
not be looked at in isolation, but should be correlated with the many factors
involved in the social structure of London and of the Borough in particular.
As was mentioned in the 1969 Report, the number of domiciliary births in
the Borough has fallen to a very low level. During theyear the two domiciliary
services - that of the Mothers' Hospital and the Borough midwifery service
were merged and there has been one overall service since the 1st April.