The Prevention of Food Poisoning: A strategy for Deregulation

Abstract

Despite increased resources devoted to food‐poisoning prevention, reported incidence of food poisoning continues to rise. Improvements in prevention strategies might therefore be necessary and there may also be opportunities for reducing the burden of regulatory control. Suggests that, of the two components of prevention, surveillance and control, control activities are returned to the private sector, allowing public sector agencies to concentrate on surveillance, the precursor to effective control. The Offices, Shops and Railways Premises Act, Hoists and Lifts Regulations model is offered as a means of devolving regulatory control.

Food safety: implications for food, medical and behavioural scientists

“…Government, for its part, has continued its policy of surveillance and control. Methods of surveillance, described by North [14] as the precursor to successful control have been improved and new food legislation has and still is being introduced. Surveillance and control are expensive in resources [14] and this inevitably imposes limitations on how they are implemented.…”

“…Additionally when outbreaks are investigated attempts are made to identify the food involved and food handling malpractices. Results from this aspect of surveillance have limitations, however, owing to the inability of people to remember precise food handling details and the amount of time available to investigate outbreaks [14]. More use could be made of accurate data and there is a need to improve its provision and presentation [15].…”

Trends in food safety management in Victoria, Australia

“…The first key issue is that of the management of food safety and the role of environmental health officers (EHOs). Managing food safety has become the domain of local councils, although North (1994) argues that a level of selfassessment and regulation would work better than the use of council inspectors. He suggests that there should be incentives to comply with food handling regulations, such as a lowering of insurance for food premises where no adverse reports were made.…”

“…However, the majority of governing bodies tend to use inspectors and it is acknowledged that frequent inspections offer an incentive to be law-abiding. What is also acknowledged is that most councils are underresourced with inspectors or EHOs and it is difficult to systematically and rigorously enforce food handling regulations (North, 1994;Adams, 1995) with such limited resources.…”

“…He also argues that it is important to continue to identify more "emerging pathogens" (Mortimore, 2000, p. 490) and to continue the campaign to educate people in the handling of food samples. North (1994) argues that the over-burdening of EHOs in relation to the surveillance of food quality has led to a diminution in the rate and effectiveness of prosecution for non-compliance.…”