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

  • Dorset (England). County Council.
Date:
1954
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

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

    59/93 (page 58)
    Provision of Meals in Schools I am grateful to the county education officer for supplying the following information relating to the provision of meals to schools in the county:— Number of schools in county receiving meals at 1st January, 1954 . . 253 Number of schools not receiving meals at 1st January, 1954 . . . . 3 Number of schools receiving meals at 31st December, 1954 . . . . 258 Number of schools not receiving meals at 31st December, 1954 . . . . 2 Number of new kitchens opened in 1954 . . . . . . . . 1 Number of new dining rooms (nor classrooms) opened in 1954 . . . . 2 Number of schools provided with washing-up facilities in 1954 . . . . 2 Daily average number of meals served in 1954 . . . . . . 20,104 Percentage of school population . . . . . . . . . . 50-73 Note.—Although the number of meals is more than in 1953, the number of children on roll has increased in greater proportion thus bringing the percentage slightljf lower than in 1953. Meat and Other Foods In July, the Ministry of Food ceased to control meat, and responsibility for providing adequate slaughtering facilities in their areas, and for the inspection of meat at slaughterhouses, reverted to local authorities. The Government’s plans, following decontrol, were outlined in a White Paper published at the beginning of the year entitled 'The Interim Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Slaughterhouses'. The committee’s recommendations were almost wholly adopted in the Slaughterhouses Act which received the Royal Assent on the 5th July and came into force on that date. The Act makes local authorities responsible for ensuring that adequate slaughtering facilities are available in their area pending the implementation of the Government’s policy of moderate concentration of slaughtering. Powers are also given to licence private slaughterhouses for a period exceeding thirteen months, provided the date of expiry is not later than the 31st July, 1959. The object of increasing the period of the licence is to encourage applicants to carry out necessary improvements to the premises concerned. Local authorities are also given powers to acquire premises compulsorily and to revoke licences when they are satisfied that adequate slaughtering facilities exist in the locality. A new slaughterhouse at Uddens, near Wimborne, was opened by the Ministry of Food on the 30th March, 1954, and the Wimborne and Cranborne Rural District Council, in whose area the slaughterhouse is situated, appointed three additional sanitary inspectors to undertake full-time meat inspection duties at the premises. The Ministry maintained responsibility for the salughter- house until October, when the rural district council took over the premises on lease from the Ministry pending negotiations for possible purchase. The actual management of the slaughterhouse and general supervision of slaughtering arrangements is under- taken by the Fatstock Marketing Corporation as agents for the rural district council. The Uddens abattoir serves the Wimborne Urban District, the greater part of the Wimborne and Cranborne Rural District, the County Borough of Bournemouth, Poole Borough, Christchurch Borough, Lymington Borough and the Ringwood and Fordingbridge Rural District. At the 31st December there were twenty-seven licensed slaughterhouses in use in the count5^ excluding bacon and food factories, and their disposition is set out below:— Blandford Borough . . . . . . 1 Bridport Borough . . . . . . . . 1 Dorchester Borough . . . . . , 2 Poole Borough .. .. .. .. 1 Shaftesbury Borough . . .. . . 1 Sherborne Urban District . . . . .. 2 Beaminster Rural District . . . . . . 3 Bridport Rural District . . . . . . 1 Dorchester Rural District . . . . . . 4 Shaftesbury Rural District . . . . . . 1 Sherborne Rural District . . . . . . 2 Sturminster Rural District . . . . . . 2 Wareham and Purbeck Rural District .. 3 Wimborne and Cranborne Rural District . . 3 Meat inspection in the Boroughs of Blandford and Bridport, and the rural districts of Shaftesbury and Bridport, is undertaken by private veterinary surgeons engaged for the purpose by the respective councils. Elsewhere the work is undertaken by sanitary inspectors, and in the case of the Borough of Dorchester, where slaughtering is on an extensive scale at both slaughterhouses, meat inspection makes heavy demands on the time of the two inspectors and entails considerable overtime. The system of concentration of slaughtering adopted by the Ministry of Food during the period of control proved its worth in the achievement of a high standard of meat inspection, and it is to be hoped that the Interdepartmental Committee’s recommen- dations for a system of moderate concentration of slaughtering will be implemented as soon as possible. Scattered licensed slaughter- houses and irregular hours of slaughtering place a heavy strain on the meat inspector who conscientiously endeavours to maintain a one hundred per cent meat inspection service. With the decontrol of meat the Livestock (Restriction of Slaughtering) (No. 2) Order, 1940, lapsed and thus was lost the power to compel the staining of unsound meat. This is to be regretted, for this power was of great assistance in preventing the clandestine sale for human consumption of knacker and other unfit meat. Voluntary staining of this class of meat is not likely to be very successful, and the way is made easier for an unscrupulous dealer to engage in this unwholesome business. It is to be hoped that suitable regulations will be made at an early date to reimpose the obligation to stain unsound meat.