[Report 1950] / Medical Officer of Health and School Medical Officer of Health, East Riding of Yorkshire County Council.

  • East Riding of Yorkshire (England). County Council
Date:
1950
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1950] / Medical Officer of Health and School Medical Officer of Health, East Riding of Yorkshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/78 (page 1)
    To the C hair man and }f embers of the (^o^niitj Council. Sir John Diiimiu^ton-JeffersoTi, My Lords. Ladies and (Tentlenien, T have the honour to ])resent iny Auiiual Ke]iorts for tlie year 1950 on the Health Services of tlie Oounty and on tlie School Health Services. The changes caused in these services hy tlie coming into operation of the National Health Service Act in 1948 are now matters of history, and the services administered hy the Oounty Council are becoming adjusted to their new and, in many respects, limited role. The chief ])roblem t(» be tackled is that of trying to see that these services, which are preventive ones, do not develop in isolation from the two main groups of treatment services set u]) by the Act and administered by the Regional Hos])ital Hoard, through the various Hospital Management fkunmittees and by the Executive (\)uncil. This problem is not an easy one to s(dve, as these other sections of the National Health Service too often seem to regard the function of the Local Health Authority as being one of ])roviding various aids in the way of domiciliary nursing, domestic helps, ambulance services and the loan of nursing equipment, and to forget that the main duty is still the prevention of disease or of limiting its spread or recurrence. This main aim (*an only be success- fully achieved if there is a full co-o])eration and exchange of information of all types at all levels. Fhe ])roblem of the development of the preventive health services e(iually with the treatment services is not made any easier by the fact that prevention has not the same dramatic a])peal or interest as has treatment. This matter of a])peal and interest a])])lies as much to the rk)mmittee member as to the administi'ator, nurse or doctor, with results that I need not elaborate here, and I think it is unfortunate for the ])reventive services that the new set up should have done so nnich to remove nearly all the (dinical interest from the sphere of those who have to carry out preventive work. The members or otti{*ers, lay or professional, of a Hospital Hoard have something tangible to appreciate about an ascertained cure ascribed to something they have done or provided, but their opposite numbers on