Volume 14: Responsibilities for Human and Animal Health
4.
Red meat hygiene after the slaughterhouse
Policy responsibilities for food safety
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) and Department of Health (DH)
The relationship between DH and local authority Environmental Health Officers (EHOs)
Overall responsibility
Compliance problems in food premises
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) and Department of Health (DH)
4.47 Because the 1984 Act and its predecessors gave the powers of making secondary legislation to two Ministers jointly (or in Wales, three), it was necessary to have arrangements in place to enable this to work smoothly in practice. Such arrangements had developed over many years. An interdepartmental Working Group concluded in 1989 that:
The effect was to make the Ministry of Health the central department responsible for food hygiene work in England and Wales and for health advice on food matters, although many specific responsibilities, including those for the hygiene of meat, milk and eggs, remained with MAFF. 1
4.48 Regulations under the Food Act were often jointly signed by both the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Social Services (and for Wales in that country), and preparatory work or consultation would often involve both Departments. The Working Group noted that 'some sections of the Act, for example sections 2 and 8, have been used for offences relating to physical, chemical and biological contamination of food'. But a system of lead responsibilities had been agreed between the two Departments so that one or the other would undertake to draft and guide the secondary legislation, according to which of them would subsequently assume the responsibility for implementation and monitoring once this was in effect.
4.49 The lead responsibilities of relevance to BSE were allocated as follows:
Legal proceedings, appeals, compensation and arbitration
1
1
M11 tab 3 Appendix A
The relationship between DH and local authority Environmental Health Officers (EHOs)
4.50 MAFF had an inspection/advisory/enforcement arm, the State Veterinary Service (SVS), to liaise with local authorities. DH did not have an equivalent to this. There was no centrally employed food inspection service or trading standards service. Local authorities had complete autonomy over the way in which they exercised their enforcement duties in respect of environmental health or trading standards.
4.51 Besides having medical staff and scientists in his command, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) had a Chief Environmental Health Officer (CEHO) who, with his staff, advised on the policy areas for which DH had responsibility and on the development of policy on food safety. However, these EHOs had no professional or management responsibility for or control over local authority EHOs. DH told the Inquiry that its CEHO was not necessarily the channel for the advice provided to environmental health departments in local authorities (EHDs), although some of the advice would have come from his unit. Such advice included letters, sent out 'on an ad hoc basis', relating to enforcement issues. 2
4.52 The 1984 Act laid down general standards for food intended for human consumption, and regulated its composition, preparation, presentation and sale. The requirements of the 1984 Act in principle applied to all types of businesses throughout the food chain, but the Act did not require food businesses to be registered or licensed. In Part I of its 1990 Report, the Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food 3 said that:
We are concerned that there is currently little control over the operation of food businesses and that any individual can, without training, open almost any type of food business and start trading. Thus the local food enforcement agency (the local environmental health department and its officers, the Environmental Health Officers) may only become aware of a new food business through routine monitoring of their areas or, on occasion, because of complaints from members of the public. In our view such a situation is very unsatisfactory. 4
4.53 The 1990 Gwynn Report on the functions and structure of the Department of Health noted that:
Environmental health covers risks to health from all aspects of the environment, including food, air, water and soil pollution, radiation in the environment, housing, transport. Secretary of State has a strategic as well as operational remit: he has a role in encouraging research, advising Local Authority Environmental Health Departments (which are generally responsible for enforcement) and ensuring that they are providing the proper service, and in issuing advice and warnings to professionals and the public as appropriate. 5
4.54 Hence, several central government departments were responsible for the policy areas where functions and duties were carried out by local authority Environmental Health Departments. Those departments, which included the Department of the Environment and the Department of Transport, 6 were responsible for providing advice about their policies and legislation. They did so through the issue of circulars, or liaison meetings with local authorities and their representative bodies - ie, the local authority associations and the Institution of Environmental Health Officers (IEHO) acting on behalf of the profession. But no single central government department had oversight of the whole of the work of Environmental Health Departments or of any particular issue with which they dealt.
Compliance problems in food premises
4.55 In 1990, the report 7 of the Richmond Committee discussed compliance problems that had been identified in relation to food safety standards, enforcement and surveillance. It drew on the results of a National Food Premises Condition Survey conducted by the Audit Commission in cooperation with the IEHO, which covered more than 5,000 premises inspected by EHOs in nearly 300 local authorities in England and Wales.
4.56 The survey suggested that, in the judgement of EHOs, almost one in eight food premises in England and Wales presented a significant or imminent health risk, one-third of these either warranting prosecution or being closed down. Large metropolitan areas had significantly more high-risk premises than the rest of the country. The survey also suggested that most high-risk premises were in poor physical condition. 8 Although physical condition of premises did not necessarily cause a health risk, the survey established a link between the two: the worse the condition, the higher the health risk. 9
4.57 The Richmond Committee noted on the basis of these results that:
- one in eight butchers posed imminent or significant health risks; and
- with butchers, the risk of cross-contamination from poor practices or equipment was a particular problem; there was also concern over inadequate hand-washing facilities, ineffective monitoring of temperature, and hygiene awareness. 10
In-depth analysis of [recent salmonella outbreaks] revealed considerable ignorance of proper food safety procedures, particularly in relation to the need for proper cooking and the avoidance of cross-contamination. These findings are borne out by the Audit Commission survey which found that, in relation to butchers' premises, the factors most likely to lead to significant or imminent health risk were unhygienic practices and lack of awareness by staff and management of basic food hygiene. We therefore emphasise the need for particular attention to be paid to such premises by enforcement authorities, and for steps to be taken to ensure adequate training of management and staff, with thorough monitoring of hygienic practices. 11
4.58 The Richmond Committee also commented:
Very many catering outlets operate as small independent businesses with one branch or maybe a few branches in a locality. In common with other small businesses in the food industry . . . these enterprises are unlikely to have technical expertise within the company or to have access to research associations, professional bodies or trade associations who might provide some help. Frequently advice on food safety comes only from the local authority EHO. Although the regulatory function is of vital importance, we think that the environmental health departments should not neglect their role as a source of advice and information. 12
4.59 Problems relating to EHOs were also identified. On the frequency of EHO inspections, the Audit Commission survey had indicated that almost 46 per cent of the food premises visited had not been inspected within the last year, a quarter of these had not been visited within the last three years, and a further 5 per cent had never been visited at all. 13 In Part 1 of its Report, the Richmond Committee stated:
We have also been told that a significant number of EHO posts are currently vacant because of limited financial resources within local authorities coupled with a shortfall in qualified personnel. We feel that this is a highly unsatisfactory situation. 14
4.60 The Committee recognised difficulties caused by the wide-ranging responsibilities that EHOs had for food law enforcement, responsibilities which constituted only part of their duties. In respect of EHO food-based disease responsibilities, the Committee stated:
We have been told that only a minority of EHOs in a given authority area would have a specialist knowledge of epidemiology and microbiology though all would have had some relevant professional training in these subjects. 15
4.61 Stating that 'legislation is only effective if enforced', the Committee made a number of recommendations aimed at ensuring that training of EHOs, in particular, adequately took account of the need for: evenness of enforcement; effective and coherent action to control food poisoning outbreaks; knowledge of arrangements for overseeing public health at local level and for the notification of communicable disease; knowledge of food microbiology, food technology and food control systems including the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system; and knowledge of the requirements of small food processing enterprises and of the principles involved in operating refrigerated vehicles. 16
4.62 To ease the burden on EHOs of this 'extensive if not positively daunting' list, the Committee recommended the development of specialist food technician posts:
One practical and resource-sparing measure which we believe would enable enforcement authorities to achieve more adequate levels of monitoring than they do at present would be to encourage the development of a new cadre of specialist food technicians who would be available to assist EHOs . . . The EHO training is very broad-based and takes a number of years to complete; food technologists could be trained more speedily on courses focusing more sharply on food-related problems. 17
4.63 The Richmond Committee noted the proposals of the European Commission - described in Chapter 3 - to extend the regulatory requirements that applied to export slaughterhouses to all red meat plants. It considered that the staffing and training of the meat inspection systems, and their overall supervision, needed to be addressed, and recommended that:
. . . a dedicated programme of training and continuing in-job development is required . . . 18
for meat inspectors, veterinary surgeons and Environmental Health Officers engaged in meat inspection.
4.64 With respect to epidemiological data on related human illness and animal contamination, the Richmond Committee recommended that, while the present reporting systems provided much useful information, they needed to be overhauled so as to improve the identification and reporting of infections; and that closer coordination was needed between the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (CDSC) 19 and its human database and the State Veterinary Service (SVS) and its animal database; and between the CDSC and the Central Public Health Laboratory's Division of Enteric Pathogens (DEP). It also recommended that the Public Health Laboratory Service should be given a formal responsibility to collate information from human and veterinary sources. 20
4.65 In relation to microbiological surveillance, the Committee recommended the establishment of a national microbiological surveillance and assessment system; it also recommended that local authorities and DH should encourage EHDs whenever possible to target their surveillance work more precisely in future, and to carry out surveys that provided good quality information as a basis for decision-making. The Committee concluded that such a nationwide system for the surveillance of food, together with epidemiological data on related human illness and animal contamination, would provide the factual basis, which was currently lacking, for public health actions, for policy decisions and for advice to industry. 21
4.66 The Richmond Committee concluded:
. . . we see the present level of foodborne illness in the UK as reflecting many different causes and as part of an international problem. Factors relevant in increasing the risk of foodborne illness range from changes in agricultural practice, changes in the pattern of food consumption, changes in the way food is processed and handled and changes in the lifestyle of consumers. No one of these areas is predominant: no one category of participants in the food chain has sole blame or sole responsibility. All those involved in the food chain have their part to play in minimising the risks. 22
1 M11 tab 3 p. 4 para. 2.5. The Group's terms of reference were to review the allocation within central government of responsibilities for public health, particularly those for food safety, and the relationship between central government and local authority environmental health and trading standards departments in relation to food safety, and to make recommendations for improvements, including consideration of possible improved coordination arrangements
2 BSE Memo DH 8/98 - DH01 tab 10 para. 17
3 Chaired by Sir Mark Richmond. Part 1 of its report: The Microbiological Safety of Food (HMSO February 1990) is to be found at M22 tab 3
4 M22 tab 3 p. 81 para. 9.4
5 'Functions and Structure of the Department of Health' (Gwynn and Rook) M39 tab 1 p. 112 para. 46
6 Now combined to form the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
7 M22 tab 3 and M22 tab 4
8 M22 tab 4 p. 8 para. 1.23
9 M22 tab 4 p. 15 para. 1.3.2
10 M22 tab 4 pp. 16-17 para. 1.3.9
11 M22 tab 4 p. 120 para. 8.48
12 M22 tab 4 p. 137 para. 9.53
13 Clay's Handbook of Environmental Health 16th Edition (Chapman and Hall 1992) (M 43 tab 11) p. 424
14 M22 tab 3 p. 25 para. 4.9
15 M22 tab 3 p. 25 para. 4.8
16 M22 tab 4 p. 157 para. 11.16
17 M22 tab 3 pp. 83-4 para. 9.15
18 M22 tab 4 p. 57 para 4.17b
19 Part of the Public Health Laboratory Service
20 M22 tab 3 pp. 21-2 paras 3.39-3.42 and 3.46
21 M22 tab 3 p. 39 paras 5.17, 5.19 and 5.21
22 M22 tab 4 p. 23 para. 2.18
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