[Report 1950] / Medical Officer of Health, Dudley County Borough.

  • Dudley (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1950
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1950] / Medical Officer of Health, Dudley County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/84 (page 6)
    Health Service expenditure. Surely the time has come for a move in the opposite direction. The Health Service is not yet 100 per cent, efficient, but to achieve the maximum efficiency it is not necessary to increase expenditure. By cutting out non-essentials and by the establishment of a balanced system of priorities, covering the whole field of medical care a much more effective and economical service could be achieved. The health services provided by the Local Authority involve the least expenditure of the whole National Health Service adminis- tration. The effectiveness of these services can be seen by reference to various sections of this report but let it be remembered that there are sections which now never appear in this report as a result of the efforts made by Local Health Authorities in the past. Moreover, the Local Authority’s Health Service is a preventive Health Service and therein lies the solution to the present financial problem. Let more emphasis be placed on the prevention of disease and the cost of curative medicine will be proportionately cheaper ; and apart altogether from the question of cost, we will have a more effective and successful Health Service. I will make a few general comments now on the more important aspects of the public health throughout the year with the exception of the outbreak of Poliomyelitis which as already stated has been dealt with in detail in the supplement to this report. Infant Mortality. The infant mortality rate is the same as for the previous year and is still too high. However, the actual number of infant deaths has fallen from 53 to 48, but against this there has been a fall in the birth rate. The infant death rate for the year per thousand related live births is 47-34 as compared with 47-32 for 1949. The rate for the Great Towns including London is 33-8 and for England and Wales is 29-8 so that Dudley does not compare favourably with the national averages. The comparison between the infant death rate in a town the size of Dudley and the national average is never a constant figure because one must expect considerable fluctuations from year to year in smaller communities, for instance, the rate two years ago was 37, the lowest ever recorded in the Borough and below the national average for the year. Nevertheless the rate this year is a high one by comparison with other communities of comparable size and must be reduced. It emphasises the constant vigilance which must be exercised in the care of this very susceptible age group. There is no other branch of preventive medicine in which success justifies the maximum effort, which results in the saving of human lives, and in no other field of Public Health is the co-operation of the hospital, the general practitioner, and the Local Authority so essential. We all have an equal and a vital part to play. Working together we must provide what the National Health Service Act is intended to provide, viz. a comprehensive scheme of medical care. Only when this has been achieved will we see the full benefits of the new Health Service. A detailed study of the infant death rate for the year does however, show some improvement over last year’s figures ; this will be referred to under the appropriate heading in a subsequent part of this report.