[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Westminster, City of].

  • City of Westminster (London, England). County Council.
Date:
[1949]
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Westminster, City of]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/48 (page 5)
    5 To the Right Worshipful the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the City of Westminster. My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I beg to submit my report on the public health and sanitary conditions of the City for the year 1948. The Ministry of Health in Circular 3/49 issued on 17th January, 1949, indicated the lines on which this report should be prepared, namely, on those similar to the report for 1947. The Ministry appreciates that for authorities such as the City of Westminster certain aspects of the report will relate only to the first half of the year for on 5th July, 1948, Maternity and Child Welfare, Day Nurseries, Home Help Service, Vaccination and Immunisation, Tuber culosis Dispensary service, were by the provisions of the National Health Service Act of 1946 transferred from the control of the City Council to that of the London County Council and to the Regional Hospital Board. In many areas of the country, County Councils, designated Local Health Authorities under the Act, while preserving their new rights and powers have left the Maternity and Child Welfare, &c., duties, to a considerable extent in the hands of those who administered these prior to the new Act. This procedure has not been followed in London, where a new ad hoc divisional administrative machine has been set up in each of nine areas into which the county has been divided, the London County Council being in direct control of staff and premises. It will be appreciated that to submit an account of services which remained under the City Council only for the first half of the year is not very satisfactory and not a little confusing. The writer has to keep adjusting his mind and his pen between past and present tenses; while reporting vital statistics such as Infant Mortality rates for the whole year he can only report on services and measures to combat infant mortality for the first half of the year. So it is necessarily half the story. There is good reason to believe that the London County Council and its officers appreciate the high standard of the services which the City Council has had to hand over, and this applies likewise to the Regional Hospital Board. An experienced and efficient staff with unrivalled know ledge and understanding of the area and its inhabitants, premises specially built and equipped for the purpose of these services and in a state of fresh decoration and repair were first rate assets. The City Council always welcomed distinguished visitors and others specially interested in Maternity and Child Welfare from home and overseas to its newest Welfare Centre and Day Nursery at Bessborough Street and it is gratifying that the County Council is continuing this tradition as this building by its design and planning merits study as an example of the enterprise of a progressive municipality.