Medical, veterinary and environmental liaison activities in Scotland

The past decade has seen many changes in the relationships between the medical, veterinary and environmental health professions in Britain. Doctors and veterinarians had traditionally tended to remain in isolation to each other despite mutual interests, while working relationships between public health doctors and environmental health officers were disrupted following re-organization of the NHS in 1974 and of local government in 1975. The situation was, however, generally less acute in Scotland where active encouragement had been given since the early 1970s towards the creation of local liaison groups in different areas of the country, the first of which was formally established in Aberdeen in 1969. The subsequent development of other liaison groups and the role of the Communicable Diseases (Scotland) Unit in coordinating inter- and intra-professional liaison and communications throughout Scotland is described, along with examples of combined activities in surveillance, investigation and control measures.