Public Health Act 1936

144 Obligation to notify certain diseases.

(1) When an inmate of any building used for human habitation, not being a hospital in which persons suffering from an infectious disease are received, is suffering from a notifiable disease—

(a) the head of the family to which that inmate (in this section referred to as " the patient ") belongs and, in his default, the nearest relatives of the patient present in the building or in attendance on the patient, and, in default of such relatives, every person in charge of or in attendance on the patient, and, in default of any such person, the occupier of the building, shall, as soon as he becomes aware that the patient is suffering from a notifiable disease, send notice thereof to the medical officer of health of the district in which the building is situate;

(b) every medical practitioner attending .on, or called in to visit, the patient shall, as soon as he becomes aware that the patient is suffering from a notifiable disease, send to the medical officer of health of the district in which the building is situate a certificate stating the name of the patient, the situation of the building, and the disease from which, in the opinion of that medical practitioner, the patient is suffering.

(2) Any person who fails to send a notice or certificate which he is required by this section to send shall be liable to a fine not exceeding forty shillings:

Provided that a person who is required to send notice only in default of some other person shall not be liable to a fine, if he satisfies the court that he believed, and had reasonable grounds for believing, that the notice had been duly sent.

(3) In this section the expression " occupier " includes a person having the charge, management, or control of the building, or of the part of a building, in which the patient is, and in the case of a building the whole of which is ordinarily let out in separate tenements, or in the case of a lodging-house the whole of which is ordinarily let to lodgers, the person receiving the rent payable by the tenants or lodgers either on his own account or as the agent of another person.