FSA AUDITS OF MEAT ESTABLISHMENTS SHOW FAR TOO MANY NEED IMPROVEMENT

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) recently published Meat Establishments audits of approved Slaughterhouses, Cutting plants and Game handling premises up to the 1st June 2018. The report shows continuing problems in relation to meat Hygiene. The link below shows the audit results: https://fsadata.github.io/meat-establishment-audits/data/meat-establishment-audits-as-at-1-june-2018.csv Although the results are difficult for the people to understand, as they do not make them easy to read, they indicate at least six businesses were required to make “urgent improvement” and another fourteen were rated as “improvement necessary”. The FSA classify urgent Improvement necessary as “multiple major non-compliances or critical non-compliance identified during audit visit or interim audit period. Official intervention required to ensure public health safeguards”. They also classify Improvement necessary as “major non-compliances identified at audit and/or non-compliances during the audit period, not always responded to and corrected promptly”. Also, there were at least 300 other Businesses that were found to have one major non-compliance, although they were rated Generally satisfactory. The FSA classify Generally satisfactory as “no immediate issues of significance for public health, animal health or animal welfare identified on the day of the audit. Any non-compliances identified during the audit period have been corrected promptly”. A mayor non-compliance in lay terms is a breach of hygiene legislation, which is unlawful and therefore could pose a risk to public health etc. As you can see from the above, there has been no significant improvement recently especially with all the meat hygiene scares reported in the media. The number of meat businesses having one major non-compliance at audit is at least 25%. Whilst the FSA believe it is OK to rectify at the time of the audit, It does not resolve the issue how long previously the problem was there for and if it impacted public health etc. Could I respectively suggest that the FSA concern themselves more with regulating our future now as they clearly need more independent meat hygiene inspectors, rather than their plan to regulate our future by spending more taxpayers’ money on computer systems etc. In a battle the foot solders do the work, not those in their ivory towers! Sorry it has been so long since the last update. In May I responded to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in relation consultation on the future farm policy. The response is seven pages long and therefore far too long to post on this update. Whilst the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is responsible from the slaughterhouse onwards in the food chain, they are not responsible for farms and the environment. DEFRA policies could help assist in helping to reduce foodborne illness and illness caused by environmental contact with bacterium. Thank you all for your continued support and comments.