[Report 1954] / Medical Officer of Health, Kent County Council.

  • Kent (England). County Council. n 50045898.
Date:
1954
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1954] / Medical Officer of Health, Kent County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/42 (page 4)
    Health Department, County Hall, Maidstone. August, 1955. To the Chairman and Members of the Kent County Council. In presenting my Annual Report for the year 1954 I am, in accordance with the usual practice, including a review of services provided under the National Assistance Act, 1948, which are administered by the Health Committee and which form part of the work of the Health Department. The vital statistics in the report show that the population of the Administrative County has increased by 11,500 over the previous year and now totals 1,570,400. The birth rate for the year 1954 was 14-6, which is a little lower than the rate of 14-8 in 1953, and the total number of births (22,879) shows a decrease of 199 as compared with the previous year. The infant mortality rate, that is, the number of deaths of infants under one year for each thousand live births, is 22 • 6, which is much the same as it was in the year 1953. The maternal mortality rate, that is the number of maternal deaths expressed in relation to each thousand total live and still births, again reached the low figure of -5, which is the same as that in 1952 and 1950. This extremely low rate reflects not only the effects of modern treatment but also the extent of the services available to expectant and nursing mothers. The report follows the usual lines of dealing with each of the services provided by the Health Committee and it is only necessary for me to direct attention to certain particular services where noteworthy developments are taking place. In the Ambulance Section the work undertaken continues to grow and in providing an efficient and yet economical service, greater use is being nrade of diesel engined vehicles and radio-telephony. It is believed that Kent was the first authority to introduce diesel engined vehicles into regular ambulance practice and, as a result of the experience gained, the orders placed for new vehicles for delivery in 1955 are, for the first time, all for this type of vehicle. The steady development in the use of radio-telephony will provide for its use in 170 vehicles associated with six main controlling trans- mitters. It is believed that this will make the County Council the biggest single civilian user of very high frequency radio-telephone communications in the country. It is certainly true that without radio-telephonic methods of communication the Ambulance Service would require more men than it does today and the cost of the whole service would show a marked increase. The Domestic Help Service continues to show an increase in the number of persons served which has now reached 4,703 a week. Some three-quarters of these persons are over the age of 65. For the last two months of 1954 the experimental scheme for the provision of evening and night attendants for elderly people was introduced in the Maidstone and Medway Towns areas, having a population of some quarter of a million, which is approximately one-sixth of the whole County. There are two important aspects of this scheme which I believe merit special consideration. The first is that the arrangements are so designed and administered as to pay the fullest regard to the part that voluntary effort can play in the care of the aged and particular importance is attached to the regulation that no assistance is given in any case unless there has first been the fullest consultation with the local voluntary bodies and they are, after enquiry, unable to provide help. The other important aspect is that for the first time a scheme has been introduced by the Health Committee on the basis of a pilot experiment for a limited period of time to a part of the County. It will, of course, be appreciated that before the scheme was introduced there was no precise know- ledge available to the Health Committee of what need would exist for services of this type. It was known that there was a need but no one could estimate what was the extent of that need and what would be the best method or methods of meeting it. It is true that there must be difficulties con- fronting any statutory body, such as a local authority, in introducing only in a part of its area some new social service which is paid for by contributions from the whole of the area. Nevertheless, in a new service which is to provide for a need that cannot be precisely estimated and where experience is necessary in determining the best way to assess and meet that need, there is a great deal to be said for the creation of an experimental administrative arrangement for a pre-determined period of time to operate over a limited area. The second experimental scheme that has been brought into effect is the Family Help Service which the County Council approved in November 1954 for introduction in the year 1955. Whilst full details of the working of this scheme will be given in my next annual report, it will be of interest here to record briefly the objectives of the proposal and the conditions under which it now operates. The object of the scheme is to prevent, where possible, the temporary break-up of a family resulting from the necessity to have children received into care under the provisions of the Children Act, 1948, owing to their being deprived of the care of their mother or female guardian. In general, the cir- cumstances in which children may be deprived of the care of their mother do, in the majority of instances within the scheme, arise from the mother having to receive hospital care for sickness or confinement, but there are also cases where, owing to the death of, or desertion by, the mother, some period of temporary care is all that is needed whilst the father makes other arrangements. The purpose of the scheme is to enable children to continue to live at home rather than be brought into the care of the Children’s Committee and placed in Homes or the care of foster-parents. The arrange- ments provide that a scheme should be operated for a preliminary period of one year and that all applications for assistance will be made by the Children’s Officer for families, the parents of whom