“Scores on the Doors”. • Developing the national scheme. • The “Scores on the
Doors” Steering. Group. • Working Groups. • Scoring / banding and safeguards.
“Scores on the Doors” Rob Wilkins Asiantaeth Safonau Bwyd, Caerdydd Food Standards Agency,Cardiff
“Scores on the Doors”
• Background • Pilot schemes • The benefits of a national scheme
“Scores on the Doors”
• Board Meeting March 2008 • Consultation • Board Meeting December 2008
“Scores on the Doors” • Developing the national scheme • The “Scores on the Doors” Steering Group • Working Groups • Scoring / banding and safeguards • Scope and pre-launch / launch issues
“Scores on the Doors” • Debate and discussion…lively or what? • Contentious issues • Resolution • What’s been agreed
“Scores on the Doors” • The scope • Appeal mechanism • Revisit / rescoring • Using annex 5
Criteria
Score
Level of current compliance with food hygiene and safety procedures
0
5
10
15
20
25
Level of current compliance based on the structure of the establishment
0
5
10
15
20
25
Confidence in management/control procedures.
0
5
20
30
Total score
0
80
High
Low
Level of compliance
Annex 5 scores Additional scoring factor Tiers Star positions
10
0 – 15 No score > 5
20 No score > 10
25 – 30 No score > 10
35 – 40 [No score > 15]
45 – 50 [No score > 20]
> 50
Top
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Bottom
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none
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“Scores on the Doors”
• Wales Implementation Group • LA resource concerns • Wales on board
“Scores on the Doors” • FSA grants for “early adopters” • Take up in Wales • All 22 applied for grants • 21 took up grants
“Scores on the Doors”
“Scores on the Doors” • Working group on consistency issues • Meeting with consumer, business and tourism stakeholders • Addressing business concerns • Support for local authorities
“Scores on the Doors” • LA secondees to Agency • Enhanced guidance on Annex 5 scoring • Briefing material • Dealing with the media
“Scores on the Doors” • Promotional and marketing material • Consistency training for local authority officers • Cost neutral publication of SotD information on a national website
“Scores on the Doors” • The Welsh language, being bilingual • Yr iaith Gymraeg, dwyieithrwydd • What shall we call it? • Symbols, descriptors • IT Advisory Group
“Scores on the Doors” • IT Q and A • What happens next? • Working together, helping each other • The launch, when and how?
“Scores on the Doors”
Where Wales leads the World
The Work of the Welsh Food Microbiological Forum
Overview • The shopping basket model for food surveillance • Targeted surveys • Selected papers
The shopping basket model • The model is based on giving sampling officers a list of 10-12 RTE foods • Premises should be randomly selected-ensuring representative sampling • All Local Authorities sample from the same list • All labs test for the same range of organisms using the same methods
The advantages to this model are: • consistent approach to routine food surveillance • larger number of samples-more statistical power when interpreting results • wide range of foods gives sampling officers flexibility • random selection of premises gives representative sampling • consistent approach allows a single database of results to be collated
• the inclusion of foods on the list is a decision made by everyone-so local concerns can be addressed to see if there is a wider problem • trends can be monitored and expected levels established-”food norms”-these can then feed into the establishment of guidelines and criteria • problem food types (and single samples) can still be identified and followed-up • problem foods/premises can form the basis of targeted surveys
Targeted surveys In addition to the shopping basket surveillance, the WFMF also arranges specific targeted surveys: specific pathogens specific food types specific locations Usually the targeted surveys are in response to a national or local issue-increase in cases, an outbreak or an incident, results from a local survey, results from the shopping basket
Recent WFMF targeted surveys Comparative survey of Listeria in hospital sandwiches Reason:
outbreak of listeriosis in a Cardiff hospital linked to sandwiches
Result:
survey found that sandwiches served in hospitals had a lower prevalence rate then those sampled from retailers-difference in rates was not significant, but the trend in hospitals was lower
Campylobacter and Salmonella in raw chicken (2001-06) Reason:
FSA sponsored survey to establish base-line level in raw chicken. Survey ran for 5 years and included Northern Ireland in the latter years.
Result:
Salmonella rate decreased over the survey period from approx 10 to 5%. Campylobacter stayed at 70% for the duration of the survey.
Survey of the microbiological quality of school food Reason: 2005 VTEC outbreak prompted a need to assess the general microbiological quality of school food across Wales Result:
School food sampled from the point of service from across Wales was examined for a range of different organisms-indicators and pathogens. School food was found to be of good quality- relative to the shopping basket
Prevalence of Listeria in RTE food sampled from point of sale/service Reason:
Rise in the number of non-pregnancy related cases in the UK and a spike in cases in Wales-a shopping basket model was applied to the survey with a range of foods being examined-but only for ACC and Listeria
Results:
All food types examined contained detectable Listeria species. Sandwiches had the highest prevalence rate of L. monocytogenes and the highest number of unsatisfactory samples
Selected papers from the work of the WFMF •
Meldrum RJ, Griffiths JK, Smith RMM and Evans MR (2005) The seasonality of human Campylobacter infection and Campylobacter isolates from fresh, retail chicken in Wales. Epidemiol Infect 133: 49-52
•
Meldrum RJ, Smith RMM and Wilson IG (2006) Three-year surveillance programme examining the prevalence of Campylobacter and Salmonella in whole, retail, raw chicken. J Food Prot 69: 928-931
•
Meldrum RJ and Smith RMM (2007) The occurrence of Listeria monocytogenes in sandwiches available to hospital patients in Wales, UK. J Food Prot 70: 1958-1960
•
Meldrum R, Mannion P and Garside J. (2009) Microbiological Quality of Ready to Eat Food Served in Schools in Wales, UK. J Food Prot 72: 197-201
