[Report 1971] / Medical Officer of Health, Warwickshire County Council.

  • Warwickshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1971
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report 1971] / Medical Officer of Health, Warwickshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/50 (page 1)
    C.M.O.H. 108. Office of the County Medical Officer of Health, County Health Department, Shire Hall, Warwick. (Telephone: Warwick 43431). Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, t have the honour to report on the health of the County for the year 1971. The main event of the year was the handing over to the Social Services Committee and to the Education Committee of certain services which had been the responsibility of the Health Committee since the implemen¬ tation of the National Health Service Act, 1946. These services were the Home Help Service, Care of the Illegitimate Child and its Mother, and Registra¬ tion and Inspection of Child Minders and Playgroups. A further service transferred to the Social Services Committee was responsibility for the domiciliary care of mentally disturbed persons and mentally subnormal adults. This community mental health service did not become the responsibility of the Health Department until the Mental Health Act, 1959, was imple¬ mented. Prior to 1959 it had been the responsibility of the former Welfare Committee. The Mental Health Act placed an obligation on local authority health departments to provide junior training centres for every child in their areas who was in need of this form of training. Under the Social Services Act of 1970 the responsibility for these children became that of the Education Committee and not the Health Committee. The report on the year during which these services have been transferred may be considered an appro¬ priate time at which to review their development since the National Health Service Act of 1946. During the past twenty-five years which, it must be remembered, commenced at the end of the second World War when the country’s financial resources allowed for only very limited financial aid, the Govern¬ ment of the time placed on local health authorities, in addition to their existing commitments, the responsi¬ bility for pioneering and establishing a number of personal social services and the building of new premises from which they could be operated. Thus the foundation for the services which have during the year been handed over to the Social Services and Education Committees were laid by the Health Committee who had the difficult task of building them up. This was achieved—in Warwickshire to a very high standard—-by the aid of successive and generous Health Committees and by the unstinting efforts of a loyal staff which, in the early days, was small and even in the latter years has coped very satisfactorily with the gradual expansion of the services while keeping the staffing standard to a level which would not put an undue burden on the ratepayers. In referring to the work which has been done in the past twenty-five years, it must not be forgotten that voluntary organisations have also given tremendous valuable assistance. Thus it was possible during the year for these services to be virtually handed over “on a plate” to the new Social Services Committee and to the Education Committee. The services concerned could have been expanded still further by the Health Committee had the financial aid now made available by the Government to the social services committees been made available to them. Nevertheless the present Health Committee can be justly proud of the standard which they and their predecessors achieved and of the number of purpose-built premises, including the six modern junior training centres transferred to the County Education Committee and the purpose-built adult training centres and hostels and mother and baby home transferred to the Social Services Committee. The Department of Health and Social Security selected Warwickshire as one of the trial areas for the implementation of the Mayston Report on Management Structure for domiciliary nursing staff. This selec¬ tion of Warwickshire as a trial area has made possible the early adoption of this Structure in the County and enabled us to keep pace with the implementation of the Salmon Report which provides for a similar structure for hospital nursing staff.