[Report 1960] / Medical Officer of Health, West Sussex County Council.

  • Gwynne Nettler
Date:
1960
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1960] / Medical Officer of Health, West Sussex County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/78 (page 5)
    County Hall, Chichester. Telephone: Chichester 3001. 5th July, 1961. To the Chairman, Aldermen and Councillors of the County Council of West Sussex. In accordance with the requirements of the Public Health Officers Regulations, 1959, I have much pleasure in presenting my first Annual Report on the health of the County. The body of the Report gives a detailed account of the many functions of the County Health Department, all of which are directed towards the improvement of the health and social conditions of the people of West Sussex. It is clear that the activities of the Department, carried out at all times in close co-operation with the hospital and family doctor services, are not only continuing to make a most significant contribution towards the prevention of ill-health, but are also bringing relief in many ways to persons who have already had the misfortune to suffer physical or mental affliction and distress. Past, Present and Future Dr. J. S. Bradshaw retired from the office of County Medical Officer of Health and Principal School Medical Officer on March 31st, 1960, after a tenure of twenty years. His predecessors were Dr. R. D. Smedley (1913-1940) and Dr. A. G. R. Cameron (1911-1913). Those fifty years have seen more significant advances in medicine in general and in the control of communicable disease in particular than had occurred in the 2,300 years since Hippocrates. In his last Report as County Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Bradshaw stated that the most noticeable feature of his twenty years in office had been the increasing volume, variety and complexity of his work. That trend is continuing and accelerating with the growth of the County population and with the elaboration of more comprehensive schemes of medical and social welfare. With the exception of Hertfordshire, where there are four new towns, West Sussex has the most rapidly increasing population in England and Wales. From 1950 to 1960 the population increased by 25 per cent and the number of houses and flats by 42 per cent. The then Minister of Health in his Report* of June, 1960, sees the next ten years of the National Health Service as a period during which the development of the preventive health services will receive increasing emphasis. * Report of the Ministry of Health for the year ended 31st December, 1959. Cmd. 1086.