[Report 1962] / Medical Officer of Health and School Medical Officer of Health, Derbyshire County Council.

  • Derbyshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1962
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1962] / Medical Officer of Health and School Medical Officer of Health, Derbyshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sionate selves. When the handicap is a mental one* the colours are intensified and the dazzled viewer needs even greater courage and even greater wisdom”. It would be well for those persons having responsibility for taking decisions or giving advice in this field to bear these comments in mind. Even so, they should not be unmindful of what Shakespeare wrote in The Life of Timon of Athens— “ ’Tis not enough to help the feeble up, But to support him after.” Development of Local Authority Health and Welfare Services. The Minister of Health presented a Command Paper A Hospital Plan for England and Wales to Parliament on 23rd January, 1962. A section of the Plan deals with care in the community and relates to the development of Local Authority Health and Welfare Services. This has been amplified in the Ministry of Health’s Circular 2/62 on the “Development of Local Authority Health and Welfare Services”. The Hospital Plan includes a section on care in the community which emphasises that “where illness or disability cannot be forestalled by preventive measures, care at home and in the community, rather than in hospital, should always be the aim, except where there is a need for diagnosis, treatment and care of a type which only a hospital can provide . . . The plan for the development of the hospital service is, therefore, complementary to the expected development of the services for prevention and care in the community and a continued expansion of those services has been assumed in the assessment of the hospital provision to be aimed at”. The Circular states “It follows that the local authority services need to be planned for the same period ahead as the hospital service. The Minister, therefore, now asks the Council to review its health and welfare services, and to draw up a plan for developing them over the next ten years”. Consultations have taken place with the Sheffield and Manchester Regional Hospital Boards, the Derbyshire Health Executive Council, the Derbyshire Local Medical Committee, the Borough and District Councils, voluntary organisations and Chesterfield Borough Council as a delegate health authority. All these consultations took up a great deal of time and thought. The Ten-Year Programme in its final form provided for the following— (a) Four new ambulance stations; (h) Thirteen new major clinics and eighteen new minor clinics, as well as extensions to three existing clinics; (c) One new day nursery, and extensions to an existing day nursery; (d) Three new junior training centres for the mentally subnormal, and extensions to existing centres; three new senior training cen¬ tres for the mentally subnormal; one industrial training centre; (e) Six new hostels, and two residential homes for short-term care, for the mentally subnormal; six new hostels for the elderly mentally infirm; a hostel for the mentally ill; (/) Seven special care units for the severely subnormal.