[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council 1948].

  • London County Council (London, England). County of London.
Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council 1948]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    London County Council REPORT OF THE COUNTY MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH AND SCHOOL MEDICAL OFFICER FOR THE YEAR 1948 By Sir Allen Daley, M.D., F.R.C.P., K.H.P., County Medical Officer of Health and School Medical Officer INTRODUCTION During the year 1948 there were vast changes in the functions and administrative structure of the Department. They were a consequence of the coming into operation on July 5th, of the National Health Service Act, 1946. The Council said Farewell to the great municipal hospital service which it had built up particularly since 1930. It comprised 98 hospitals with a pre-war bed complement of 70,120 and a staff, all told and including head office hospital staff, of about 32,000. It was a complete hospital service in that it catered for all types of illness—mental and physical. The Council expressed its warm appreciation of the devoted work done by all those who had served on committees responsible for the hospital service, and by the staff who were transferred to the new national service. The Chairman of the Council invited the Hospital Committee members and representatives of all grades of the staff to receptions at County Hall. The Council's best wishes for a happy and successful future in the new administration were given. It is a tribute to both the old and the new administration that the change-over was effected without a hitch and, except that a patient who had formerly been assessed under the then Statute, to pay in whole or in part for his treatment, received it without charge, the sick person in a hospital bed was not aware that overnight there had been a change in the administrative body responsible for his welfare. This was accounted for, partly, by the fact that the Council provided on an agency basis, for some months after the appointed day the supply, engineering and finance services for the hospitals. Further, from the beginning of the year the Regional Boards had been building up their staffs and Council officers were gradually absorbed by them and by Hospital Management Committees. The new hospital authorities also took over the Tuberculosis Dispensaries and Venereal Diseases treatment clinics and the clinical staffs. The Council's hospitals were transferred to one or other of the four Metropolitan Regional Hospital Boards, except that the Hammersmith Hospital was transferred to the Board of Governors of the Hammersmith, West, London and St. Mark's group of hospitals, the Maudsley Hospital to the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Board of Governors, the St. Pancras Hospital to the University College Hospital and the North Western Hospital to the Royal Free Hospital. These are all Teaching Hospitals. To the first is attached the Postgraduate Medical School of London and to the second the Institute of Psychiatry. The last two are undergraduate medical schools. Though the hospitals are no longer the direct responsibility of the Council, preventive and curative medicine are so interwoven that extremely close contact has to be maintained between the Local Health Authority and the Hospital Authorities. Each of the four Regional Hospital Boards and each of the twenty-six Boards of Governors of Teaching Hospitals contains members appointed by the Minister after consultation with the County Council. The day by day administration of the non-teaching hospitals is entrusted to Hospital Management Committees, each Management Committee being responsible, except in the case of very large 756. (m°C. 53400-6) 12.13 49 4956 a