5th June 2009
When Prof Pennington’s long-awaited report on the Bridgend E. coli outbreak hit the desks of environmental health managers in April, his conclusions made uncomfortable reading.
Some of what he says requires serious consideration and changes in working practice. However, I believe some of the other recommendations put forward are already enshrined in current practice while others will, in my opinion, have limited effects.
Light-touch regulation undoubtedly needs to be kept under review and local authorities sourcing food for schools, hospitals and nursing homes should ask questions of the businesses’ local food safety team.
Those recommendations already enshrined in practice (or I would like to think so) are unannounced visits, discussions with employees and audit-based inspection of Haccp plans.
Light the touch paper
On Haccp plans, I am not convinced how effective simply holding a copy of it on file would be, particularly if it has not been scrutinised in the first place. It is the food safety practice recommendations that I want to explore further.
Prof Pennington is correct when he says all food businesses must ensure their systems and procedures are capable of preventing cross-contamination and that food operators need to get to grips with food safety management based on Haccp principles.
This seems an opportune moment to reignite the touch paper on prior approval. If you look around at the other teams in the local authority such as private sector housing, licensing, environmental protection, building control and planning, they use the prior approval principle in some aspects of their work.
This means that before a landlord can provide housing in multiple occupation for five or more people in a house with three floors or more, they need some form of prior scrutiny before a licence is granted. Before a business can sell liquor, it needs a licence, or in the case of an industrial process with the potential to pollute the air, land or water, this process would require approval.
While I recognise that the highest-risk food businesses require approval, I think this should be extended to all food businesses, with the training and procedures needed commensurate with the nature and size of the business.
A few years ago, when the CIEH joined forces with the Consumer Association, Lacors and the Institute of Food Science and Technology, the partners lobbied for the introduction of a system of prior approval of food premises as a first step towards protecting the public.
At the time, the CIEH was quoted as saying: “The situation we have at the moment is unacceptable and poses real dangers to public health. Anyone can open almost any kind of food business without any training or knowledge of hygiene and safety regulations.”
It is not enough for local authorities to be able to take enforcement action once these businesses are up and running. “The ultimate aim of the CIEH is for a system of licensing to cover all food premises, where the introduction of such a system would mean that food businesses would have to obtain the approval of their local authority before they start trading.”
Public support
According to the consumer group Which?, prior approval makes perfect sense to the public. They were quoted as saying: “It’s an unpalatable prospect that food outlets have not been checked for cleanliness or food safety before they are opened to the public”.
A Which? survey showed 99 per cent of people are in favour of hygiene checks before premises are opened and 80 per cent wrongly assumed the premises from which they are buying their food had been inspected before it had opened.
Of course, it depends on how those questions were framed. But I am willing to bet that if they had been framed along the lines of “do you think food premises should be checked by EHPs before they are allowed to open?” the responses would have been the same.
A prior approval system could require new businesses to ensure they provide appropriate facilities and suitably trained staff, have undertaken an analysis of the hazards and put in place appropriate control measures.
These are the current regulations, so surely it makes sense, for both the business and the local authority, to ensure that all these matters have been dealt with before a business opens for trading?
It would hardly be reinventing the wheel. After all, the UK did not pioneer the scores on doors system. In Tokyo, Los Angeles, Michigan, Ontario and Hong Kong, food businesses owners are required to apply for a licence before they can start a food business.
Tokyo bylaw
In Tokyo, the food business must appoint a person responsible for food sanitation. They must have obtained relevant qualifications for food sanitation, obtained through public examination. If, after the granting of a licence, the facilities of the food premises cease to conform to the facility standards or do not follow the management standards, the authority will provide a warning by issuing a notice of caution and guidance to the operators. If improvements are not made, the operators of the food businesses might be ordered to suspend business.
In June 2006, Toronto City Council passed a bylaw requiring food handler certification for food handlers in the food and beverage industry. This now requires that the city’s food business operators ensure there is, at all times when the establishment is operating, at least one certified food handler working in a supervisory capacity
in each area of the premises where food is prepared, processed, served, packaged or stored.
This certified handler has to produce for inspection his food handler certificate and a photo identification card upon request by City of Toronto health officials. Any food premises that do not comply with this bylaw can be subject to further action by Toronto public health, including tickets and fines.
This shows that other authorities have identified a need for some barriers to opening a food business without prior checks.
Other regulatory services in the UK are designed to ensure approval is given to the relevant person before a regulated activity is performed. So why has this same rational not been applied to the operation of a food business?
Prior approval has benefits for public health and there has been a drive in recent years towards reducing the regulatory burden on businesses.
The prior approval approach, while onerous to begin with, would reduce the need for local authorities to take lengthy and costly enforcement action against businesses after they have opened.
In an encouraging development, this debate has been discussed in the Food Standards Agency boardroom. In 2005, FSA board members suggested there was a need for more information and evidence on which they could base a decision and that this should be gathered as soon as possible. They suggested this might include
a pilot scheme, in partnership with relevant enforcement bodies and local authorities.
It was acknowledged that support for new businesses is crucial in ensuring compliance with the new legislation. There was support for a move to a prior approval system for all food premises, provided that it was backed by adequate training and support, with credible sanctions and powers of revocation provided.
The FSA also recognised the importance of making contact with new food businesses before they opened to raise awareness and educate owners about risk.
Acceptable standard
As a profession we would not be asking for anything more onerous than we already are – that the premises and people charged with running it meet an acceptable standard from day one.
Prior approval is central to the debate surrounding Prof Pennington’s recommendations. For businesses to get to grips with a food safety management procedure based on Haccp principles, they need training prior to opening so these principles form a core part of risk management in their businesses, and a culture of responsibility.
We have to learn the lessons from the Bridgend outbreak and, arguably, one way to avoid a tragedy of this kind happening again is to introduce a prior approval system.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent represent those of his employer.
Tim Bage is principle EHO at Wandsworth LBC. He would be interested to hear other EHPs' views. Email: Tbage@wandsworth.gov.uk