[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Greenwich Borough].

  • Greenwich (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
[1972?]
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Greenwich Borough]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    77/338 (page 71)
    71 health (including care, after-care and family case-work) could the maximum benefits to society be realised. As early as 1920, this logical extension into a one-tier system was the subject of a Report by Lord Dawson of Penn and it should occasion no surprise, therefore, that the Government's decision to implement a separate Social Services Act was received with some dismay in the ranks of the supporters of unification and with the feeling that a great opportunity has been lost to set the nation's health services on the right road. Apprehension has also been expressed about the fact that full success will now be dependent not upon integration but upon co-operation with all its inherent disadvantages. However, it would be a serious error to pre-judge such an issue and, assuredly, time will prove an adequate arbiter. Although the merits of a single agency will be argued ad nauseum, nevertheless, the Secretary of State has insisted that inauguration of the Area Health Boards in April, 1974, will usher in an entirely new structure, the purpose of which is to eliminate artificial barriers and, by combining the hospital and primary care or practitioner services with those of community health, to promote a service which will be a source of pride to public and staff alike. This impending and unique re-organisation will give, for the first time ever, an opportunity for all medical, paramedical and administrative services to work in unison for the common good, untrammelled by sectional interests. Watched by a critical world-wide audience we must not fail. It would be unrealistic not to acknowledge that a re-organi sation of this magnitude will inevitably precipitate some problems which will not fit neatly into pre-selected niches. Among these will be the allocation of responsibility for epidemiological investi gations and preventive actions involved in the control of serious infectious diseases as exemplified by the diphtheria outbreak at Manchester and the tuberculosis affair at Plymouth during the current year. At present the Medical Officer of Health, with the skilled assis tance of the Public Health Inspectors, has the statutory powers to bring all resources into play and to deploy them with the utmost expediency, an arrangement which has proved to be outstandingly successful. However, the coming re-organisation will leave these officers within the jurisdiction of dissimilar autho rities. Speed of action in the application of expertise is so vital in such circumstances that the future line of responsibility needs to be clear and defined and, if continuity is not to be lost, warrants urgent consideration and an early decision. As stated in the previous Report the extent to which monies