Health Law

Campaign Underway In UK To Make It Illegal To Provide Advance Warnings Of E. coli Inspections

By Marler Clark LLP

In the United Kingdom, Professor Hugh Pennington wants all food inspections, primary and secondary, to be unannounced unless 'there are specific and justifiable circumstances or reasons why a pre-arranged visit is necessary'.

The Wales News reports that:

In his report into the 2005 epidemic that struck down more than 150 people, most of them children, across the South Wales Valleys and claimed the life of Mason Jones, aged five, Professor Hugh Pennington found that all of the inspections made at the premises of the butcher responsible in the months before people became ill had been pre-arranged.

The largest E. coli outbreak in Wales history has led to a campaign group to lobby for a law that would make it illegal for food hygiene officers to warn the businesses they are about to inspect.
Now unannounced inspections are considered the "best practice," but do not always get carried out that way.  The Wales News has a story on the inspections controversy here.

Full post as published by e.Coli Blog on April 30, 2009 (boomark / email).