Author: Peacock Carter

A couple of letters have been printed in The Herald newspaper regarding the current concerns over the Environmental Health profession. 

John Crawford past president of REHIS wrote a letter titled “Agenda: Councils must give more prominence to role of environmental health” and was published 13th August 2018. Tom Bell, Chief Executive of REHIS replied to this letter titled “We must fight for a professional environmental health service” and was published on 3 September 2018. 

Both letters can be read below. 

Agenda: Councils must give more prominence to role of environmental health

By John F Crawford, environmental health officer and past president of the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland

“Moses was said to be the first public health officer. Faced with leading a large community across the wilderness (at a time when pork was infested with tapeworm) he set out rules for minimising outbreaks of infectious disease. Today many of his rules have been overtaken by time and circumstance, but communities still need access to clean food, water, air and efficient waste collection and disposal services.

Our public health protection traditions began in the Victorian age due to rapid expansions in the cities. The Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1892 and The Public Health (Scotland) Act 1897 were consolidations of earlier legislation. By the 1920s the appointment of chief sanitary inspectors in our cities, counties and burghs had to be approved by the Secretary of State for Scotland, who paid a proportion of their salaries to prevent politicians from meddling in public health matters or sacking the individual concerned.

This situation continued until the 1975 reorganisation when the new Scottish district councils had to set up separate environmental health departments with their own directors. There followed the halcyon days of the service with an all-graduate profession from the mid-80s coupled with specified on-the-job training. Environmental health directors were members of their councils, senior management teams and had the ears of the senior politicians. Councils made a lot of investment in training environmental health officer (EHO) students who then worked all over Scotland and further afield in both the private and public sectors. And to some extent, the EHOs afterwards became a victim of their own successes as coupled with improved standards of nutrition, better healthcare and housing, the traditional work of the EHO focused more on food safety, health and safety and pollution control. The sale of council houses together with a reduction in rented housing meant less involvement in identifying sub-standard properties, slum clearance and so on.

But new problems emerged such as noise complaints, food quality issues and the like as more people dined out as well as an exponential increase in car ownership. But by the next reorganisation in 1996, there had been no significant outbreaks of communicable disease in Scotland (such as the typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen in the early 1960s) and complacency crept in. So the new unitary councils formed in 1996 weren’t given a template for their organisational structures apart from merging the services delivered by the former Regions and districts. Since 1996 most councils now have a very small number of multi-disciplinary departments headed by directors who can’t be expected to understand every aspect of the services they’re responsible for delivering. The last published research (nearly a decade ago) indicated that in many councils the most senior qualified EHO is at best at third tier level: not really well-placed to influence council policy.

The most worrying thing however is that training posts have been ruthlessly cut since the turn of this century, the usual excuse being ‘pressure on budgets’. But recent research shows that 47 per cent of the EHOs currently working in Scotland are over 50 and there aren’t enough trainee posts to fill the gaps created when they’ll retire. It takes four years (assuming the practical training is undertaken in university recesses) to become a qualified EHO and there are no short-cut routes to qualification so why hasn’t Scottish Government and Cosla (who’ve both known about this problem for more than a decade) not instructed the councils to take on more trainees? Will it take another outbreak such as occurred in North Lanarkshire some years ago before something is done?”

The letter can be read on The Herald website here.

We must fight for a professional environmental health service

By Tom Bell, Chartered Environmental Health Officer, Chief Executive, The Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland

“I read with interest John Crawford’s recent informed Agenda article ("Councils must beef up environmental health, The Herald, August 13). Although now retired from senior environmental health and waste management posts within local government and from lecturing on environmental health at the University of Strathclyde he remains an influential and highly respected voice within Scotland’s environmental health community.

Environmental health officers (EHOs) are educated, trained and qualified to protect and improve the health of Scotland’s people from adverse health effects that they encounter day and daily from the environments they live and work in. They are generalists on qualification and deemed competent by the institute following academic success on an accredited BSc (Hons) Environmental Health degree course, on the institute’s Scheme of Professional Training and in the institute’s professional examination for the Diploma in Environmental Health.

Local authorities, the home of the service for around 150 years, have been actively shedding EHO posts, along with food safety officer and technical support staff posts, since local government reorganisation in 1996. The situation is now critical.

With the reduction in EHO posts came the reduction in the number of training placements for student/graduate trainee EHOs within local authorities. School leavers realising that career paths into the profession are now few and far between realise that a future career in the service is, at best, uncertain and opt to follow different careers with the result that degree courses struggle to remain viable. In the past few years three courses accredited by the institute (the BSc Honours degree courses at the universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde, and the MSc degree course at the University of Strathclyde) have closed due to the lack of students. Only one degree course accredited by the institute, the University of the West of Scotland) is currently presented in Scotland.

Working groups have been convened, seminars presented, reports published, articles written and questions asked at the Scottish Parliament on the future delivery of the Environmental Health Service in Scotland. All outcomes have pointed to the importance of the profession and the local authority-based service to the protection and improvement of public health but when it comes to resolving the issues no one organisation has full autonomy to turn the situation around.

Local authorities are cash strapped and the environmental health service is one of many struggling to deliver. The Scottish Government and Cosla have been discussing the wider issues surrounding improving the health of Scotland’s people and how the various services can co-operate to deliver improvement but progress appears to be slow.

The Scottish Government’s ongoing review of the public health function has identified the environmental health service as a core contributor to the delivery of public health. However, for the service to positively influence public health EHOs and the service will have to be placed at the centre of the decision making process within local authorities and not be left on the periphery being viewed solely as regulators and not as key public health professionals with a wide range of professional competencies all of which are geared towards carrying out interventions which will more effectively improve and protect public health in Scotland.

The outcome of the ongoing deliberations between all interested parties is awaited with optimism.

The question our politicians and society as a whole need to ask themselves is: how much do we value a properly resourced competent environmental health profession and service and support them to continue to effectively protect and improve the health of the public on the frontline?”

The letter can be read on The Herald website here.

More than a fifth of meat sample tests in 2017 found DNA from animals not on the labelling, this was revealed following a BBC Freedom Information request to the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

Out of 665 results from England, Wales and Northern Ireland 145 were partly or wholly made up of unspecified meat. The samples were taken from 487 businesses, including restaurants and supermarkets.  

In total 73 of the contaminated samples came from retailers – including three supermarkets. A further 50 came from restaurants, while 22 originated from manufacturing or food processing plants. 

The samples were taken by Local authorities from businesses in their area before sending them to laboratories for analysis. The results were then submitted to the FSA.

The FSA said the levels were consistent with "deliberate inclusion" – but added testing had targeted those businesses suspected of "compliance issues". 

Lamb was the meat most likely to contain traces of other animals’ DNA, followed by beef and goat. In total 77 of the contaminated samples came from lamb, 29 from beef, 19 from goat, 18 from pork/ham, one from duck and one from ostrich. 

Some samples contained DNA from as many as four different animals, while others contained no trace of the meat that appeared on the product's label. Cow DNA was the most commonly-found contaminant, followed by pig, chicken, sheep and turkey.

The most commonly contaminated meat product was mince meat, while sausages, kebabs and restaurant curries also featured prominently. In total 41 of the failed samples came mince meat, 31 from kebabs, 23 from curries, 20 from sausages, 12 from goat meat and eight from burgers. 

An FSA spokesman said it was up to the relevant local authorities who procured the samples to lead individual investigations and take "appropriate action" such as prosecutions.He added the results were "not representative of the wider food industry".

However, a clear picture of the wider food industry is not readily available as less than half of local authorities actually submitted meat sampling data to the United Kingdom's Food Surveillance System – part of the FSA – in 2017.

Some councils may have focused their food testing priorities "in areas other than meat substitution", the FSA said – adding that others may have carried out tests later in the financial year.

Substitution of expensive meat with a cheaper product is a common reason behind food fraud.

This latest data comes five years after the horsemeat scandal, when processed beef products sold by a number of UK supermarket chains were found to contain significant amounts of horse DNA.

While none of the 2017 samples contained horsemeat, the lack of transparency surrounding the quality and origin of meat products in the UK has raised concerns.

During the 15th World Congress on Environmental Health on 20–23 March 2018 in Auckland, New Zealand, the ongoing project called ‘Historia Sanitaria’ was presented by Institute of Public and Environmental Health, Slovenia. The presentation is available on IFEH website.

“Historia Sanitaria’, a complete guide through sanitary history, is an online platform chronologically recording the landmark events and historical achievements of the profession of public and environmental health. It is an online magazine covering different periods of history as well as recent developments. Historia Sanitaria substantively and chronologically covers the activities in Slovenia, its immediate neighbour countries and throughout the world, particularly in the United States and Great Britain.

The journal's website can be accessed here.There you can also find a special category organised for International Federation of Environmental Health history review.

Historia Sanitaria’s content of contributions is not final as it is the living form of the contributions which are continuously updated and upgraded. Historia Sanitaria enables the possibility of supplementing existing posts, as well as adding new ones. Therefore, those who are operating in the field of sanitary profession (or public and environemntal health area) and that have an access to historical sources are invited to participate. You are welcome to send additional suggestions so that the younger generations of graduates and the wider public will have an insight into the development of sanitary profession.

All suggested posts should be written in English. They should contain a year, a title, the name of the country, basic information of the event and/or achievement, and relevant photos if is available. The posts should be send in Word format to the following e-mail address: info@institut-isi.si.

Cleaner Air for Scotland’s second annual progress report has been published. This report outlines the progress made in 2017/18 to deliver ‘Cleaner Air for Scotland – The Road to a Healthier Future’, Scotland’s first separate air quality strategy. 

Cleaner Air for Scotland – The Road to a Healthier Future (CAFS) is a national cross government strategy that sets out how the Scottish Government and its partner organisations propose to reduce air pollution further to protect human health and fulfil Scotland’s legal responsibilities as soon as possible. 

It was published in November 2015 with an overarching vision that Scotland’s air quality will be the best in Europe. Over the last two years, significant progress has been made in starting to deliver this vision through the 40 key actions contained in the strategy. 

Key achievements to date include: 

·      Implementation of a refocused Local Air Quality Management system  

·      Establishing and expanding the monitoring network for PM2.5 

·      Adopting World Health Organisation values for PM2.5 into legislation  

·      Producing revised and updated Scottish action plans to demonstrate how compliance with the EU Ambient Air Quality Directive will be achieved 

Collaborative working between the Scottish Government and a wide range of partner organisations, overseen by the Cleaner Air for Scotland Governance Group, has been the basis of the progress to date. The group have welcomed two new members onto the Governance Group – the British Heart Foundation and Professor Campbell Gemmell – who will bring a fresh perspective and some important areas of expertise. 

The Governance Group have also announced significant additional funding which will support the work of Cleaner Air for Scotland. £10.8 million has been provided to support the introduction of Low Emission Zones during 2018/19 along with £0.75 million to support local authorities with Air Quality Management Areas to develop transport-based actions. 

The group continue to make progress towards securing full compliance with EU ambient air quality Directive requirements by 2020. Current projections indicate some limited areas of non-compliance in Glasgow by this date, which we are working to address. 

Following completion of the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee’s inquiry into air quality, CAFS have committed to a full review of Cleaner Air for Scotland by 2020. 

The annual report can be found here.

Chronic exposure to air pollution could be linked to cognitive performance, a new study in China suggests.

Over four years, mathematics and verbal skills of some 20,000 people in China were monitored by researchers from Beijing's Peking University and Yale University in the US. Researchers tested people of both sexes aged 10 and above between 2010 and 2014, with 24 standardised maths questions and 34 word-recognition questions.

Researchers believe the results have global relevance, with more than 80% of the world's urban population breathing unsafe levels of air pollution.

The study was based on measurements of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and PM₁₀(particulates smaller than 10 micrometres in diameter) where participants lived. Carbon monoxide, ozone and larger particulates were not included in the study. However, while establishing a link between pollution and lower test scores, the study did not prove cause and effect.

The study which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said: "We provide evidence that the effect of air pollution on verbal tests becomes more pronounced as people age, especially for men and the less educated." 

Many pollutants are thought to directly affect brain chemistry in a variety of ways – for instance, particulate matter can carry toxins through small passageways and directly enter the brain. The study also suggests that air pollution also increases the risk of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. 

The researchers also suggest older men with less education were worst affected by chronic exposure to air pollution is because those subjects often work outdoor manual jobs.

"Our findings about the damaging effect of air pollution on cognition," the study concludes, "particularly on the aging brain, imply that the indirect effect on social welfare could be much larger than previously thought."

"For older persons (in our study those age 55-65 or 65+) the effects can be very difficult to mitigate given the long term cumulative exposure," Mr Xi says.

The study suggests that while the research findings are specific to China, it can shed light on other developing countries with severe air pollution.

The authors point to the 98% of cities with more than 100,000 people in low- and middle-income countries that fail to meet WHO air quality guidelines.

The study can be found here.

Obesity Action Scotland's new research “Chips to Go” has found that the UK consume up to a quarter of their calories out of home. It also found that chips are the most commonly consumed takeaway item in Scotland. 

Obesity Action Scotland visited 30 outlets offering chips to take away in Glasgow during the last two weeks of May 2018. 

All available portion sizes in each outlet were purchased and weighed; in total 40 samples were collected. The calorie and total fat content of each portion was estimated, and compared them with typical chips servings from the Food Standards Agency’s Food Portion Sizes booklet (2002). 

There was a wide variation in available portion sizes of chips: from 120g to 755g. An average portion of chips (from outlets that offered only one size of chips) was 380g.  The size of the majority of portions was much higher than the average fish and chips shop portion (210g) in 2002: 37 out of 40 portions (92.5%) were bigger; 18 out of 40 portions (45%) were over 2 times bigger, and one (2.5%) was over 3 times bigger. 

The biggest portion of chips in this study (755g) could provide around three quarters of an adult’s daily energy requirements and more than half of total recommended fat.  One average bag of chips (380g)* contained around a half of the daily calorie intake recommended for women (2000kcal). 

There is a wide variation in the portion sizes of chips available to take away. Most of them are very high in calories and fat. The sizes of the majority of portions of chips from takeaway meals were much larger than typical chips servings in 2002. Eating chips from takeaways puts people at risk of putting on substantial weight when they consume chips over and above their intake of other food and drink. 

Obesity Action Scotland are calling for action to regulate to control portion sizes and introduce mandatory calorie caps and also regulate or limit access to unhealthy food through improved planning and licensing arrangements for out of home sector.

The fact sheet can be read here.

More than a third of farmed fruit and vegetables never reaches supermarket shelves because it is misshapen or the wrong size, research suggests.

A University of Edinburgh study found more than 50 million tonnes of fruit and vegetables grown across Europe were discarded each year.

This was in part because they did not meet supermarkets and consumers' standards of how they should look.

The climate change impact of growing the wasted food – some of which may be ploughed back into fields, used in animal feed or otherwise reused – is equivalent to the carbon emissions of almost 400,000 cars.

The study was published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

The researchers examined details of food loss and waste within the European Economic Area and studied how much food was discarded each year before it reached the point of being sold.

The researchers attributed losses to strict government regulations, supermarkets' high standards as well as customer expectations of how produce should look.

They also found that farmers contracted to supermarkets typically grew more food than they were obliged to supply, to allow for a proportion that would not be deemed fit to sell.

Researchers suggest that greater awareness among consumers, and a movement towards shopping sustainably, could encourage the sale of more ugly vegetables. 

They also suggest a greater use of misshapen produce, for example in chopped, processed or picked goods, or for sale at a discount to charities.

Stephen Porter, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, said: "Encouraging people to be less picky about how their fruit and vegetables look could go a long way to cutting waste, reducing the impact of food production on the climate, and easing the food supply chain."

In recent times, UK supermarkets have been making more space for increasing amounts of less-than-perfect produce.

Last year, Sainsbury started a campaign to encourage use of blemished bananas, while Morrisons introduced a new "wonky" range that included avocados.

Others, including Waitrose, Tesco and Asda, also branched out into selling misshapen fresh items.

Fife Council have launched new fast food vans to help deliver healthy snacks for Fife’s secondary schools.

The Council’s facilities management service new “Smash It” food vans will sell healthy food and drink to pupils outwith the dining room.

It is hoped that the “Smash It” vans will encourage school pupils to choose a healthy option at lunch rather than fast food from local shops and takeaways. 

The aim is to catch pupils who feel more comfortable outside or who are walking towards the nearest unhealthy food outlet and serve them healthy food.

The vans offer hot and cold finger food, soup, sandwiches and drinks which young people can enjoy on the go.

The move has been welcomed by Cllr Fay Sinclair, who said: ‘We are keen to do everything we can to help our young people make healthy choices. We know that many of them choose not to stay in school at lunchtime so we had to look at other ways to provide them with a healthy meal outwith the school environment. These vans seem to offer the solution.’

Service manager Keith Breasley added: ‘Not all pupils want to spend their lunchtime in school and by offering food to go in this manner we are ensuring those who want a break from the school environment can do so yet still take advantage of the nutritious food on offer from the school catering service.’

Hoarding has been classified as a medical disorder for the first time by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Hoarding as well as gaming disorder and olfactory reference disorder are now included in the International Classification of Diseases. It is here that hoarding is described as the "accumulation of possessions due to excessive acquisition of or difficulty discarding possessions, regardless of their actual value".

It adds: "Accumulation of possessions results in living spaces becoming cluttered to the point that their use or safety is compromised.

"The symptoms result in significant distress or significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning."

This comes five years after the NHS recognised hoarding disorder.

Psychiatrists said the “extremely significant” decision would help doctors and the NHS identify people struggling with hoarding and improve treatment for a condition campaigners say affects up to 5 per cent of the population.

The Drinking Water Quality Regulator (DWQR) for Scotland's latest annual report shows that Scottish Water's compliance with the stringent standards for drinking water remains high at 99.91%.

Scottish Water take and analyse samples of drinking water from across Scotland 365 days a year. The report on Drinking Water Quality in Scotland 2017 states that a total of 305,459 regulatory tests were carried out on Scotland's drinking water last year. Of those taken from samples at consumers' taps, 99.91% met the required standards.

The report also describes significant reductions in the number of consumers expressing dissatisfaction with the quality of their drinking water supply. In 2017, Scottish Water were contacted by 9,239 customers who were concerned over quality – that's half the number reported in 2012.

During 2017 the number of samples failing from service reservoirs increased. On three occasions it was necessary for Scottish Water to advise consumers to boil their water as a precaution until the problem could be investigated and remedial action taken. The reasons for more than half of these failures was found to be the condition of the reservoir and Scottish Water has now increased the amount of money it spends on maintaining these assets. 

Sue Petch the Drinking Water Quality Regulator said:

"I am pleased to report that the quality of the drinking water supplied by Scottish Water continues to be high.

"The quality of drinking water is something that I expect Scottish Water to continue to safeguard and improve. There is still more for Scottish Water to do to raise performance through improvement in the operation and maintenance of its assets."

The sixteenth report from the Drinking Water Quality Regulator for Scotland (DWQR) can be found here.

In an article, Michel Barnier, the European Commission's Chief Negotiator with the United Kingdom has said the UK Government has not yet agreed to protect ‘Geographical Indications’ (GI) such as Scotch Whisky.

The Scottish Government has been pressing UK Government to agree a need for a UK GI System post-Brexit.

The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs Fergus Ewing said urgent action is needed from the UK Government in Brexit talks to protect Scotland’s world-renowned food and drink produce.

The EU's GI scheme recognises products' regional importance and distinctive characteristics and prevents companies in other countries from producing knock-offs by threat of heavy legal penalties.

The UK Government has indicated it intends to establish its own GI scheme after leaving the EU.

But the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said these protections are among the outstanding issues yet to be agreed with his British counterparts.

Scottish ministers, including Nicola Sturgeon, have previously raised concerns that GIs for currently safeguarded Scottish products could be abandoned to sweeten a future free trade deal with the US.

There are 15 Scottish products that currently have protected Geographical Indicator and include Scotch whisky, beef and lamb, Dunlop cheese, Orkney cheddar, wild Scottish salmon and farmed Scottish salmon.

The Scottish food and industry is the fastest growing sector of the country's economy, with a record £6bn exported overseas last year led by soaring whisky and salmon sales.

Whisky accounted for 20% of all UK food and drink exports in 2017, with a boost in Scotch sales in the US, France, Germany, Singapore, Taiwan and South Africa.

Mr Ewing said:

“Maintaining our Protected Food Names and other Geographical Indications following Brexit is vital – this is something that we have been calling for the UK Government to do for a long time. The European Commission’s Chief Negotiator recognises the significant contribution that these producers make to the wider economy.

“We have been pressing UK Government to agree a need for a UK GI System post-Brexit from the outset and, while we welcome confirmation in their White Paper of the plans to do so, there remains a question over maintaining the existing protection currently enjoyed by our producers within the EU through the mutual recognition of our protected products.

“It is extremely alarming that the EU says this has not yet been resolved and that the failure of the UK Government to reach agreement on this issue is being cited as one of the obstacles to reaching an overall Withdrawal Agreement. A No Deal outcome would be catastrophic for our food and drink industry and the economy as a whole.

“The UK Government must make it clear it is not preparing to ditch vital Geographical Indications to facilitate a future trade deal with the US. It must rule out No Deal and reach an agreement that protects our world-class produce.

“Scottish food and drink exports are at an all-time high – with world-renowned Scottish goods like salmon and whisky being consumed across the globe at record levels. That’s due in part to sectors working together to sell our remarkable products, and creating or enhancing our national brands.

“Even in this time of uncertainty we will continue to do everything we can to support the growth of food and drink exports, working with key sectors to develop new and existing markets, boosting innovation and skills, and supporting Scotland’s local producers via business rates exemptions and grants.” 

The article by Michel Barnier can be read in full here.

Young children in prams may be exposed to up to 60% more pollution than their parents at the kerbside, a study has suggested. 

A study, conducted by the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) at the University of Surrey in the Environment International journal, investigated the potential exposure of infants based on their proximity to ground level and emissions at the roadside.

Researchers examined more than 160 references to highlight the factors concerning the pollution exposure of babies in prams and associated mitigation strategies, as part of the study.

Findings suggested that infants in prams breathe in more polluted air since they are positioned between 0.55m and 0.85m above ground level and vehicle exhaust pipes usually sit within 1m above road level.

This increases in-pram babies’ vulnerability to being exposed to more pollution than adults, they suggested.

The researchers also added that babies are more at risk from the health dangers of air pollution because their bodies are small and developing.

Professor Prashant Kumar, who is a Chair in Air Quality and Health and the founding director of the Global Centre for Clean Air Research, said: “We know that infants breathe in higher amounts of airborne particles relative to their lung size and body weight compared to adults. What we have proven here is that the height most children travel at while in a pram doubles the likelihood of negative impacts from air pollution when compared to an adult.

“When you also consider how vulnerable they are because of their tissues, immune systems, and brain development at this early stage of their life, it is extremely worrying that they are being exposed to these dangerous levels of pollution.”

The authors called for more to be done to reduce air pollution or lessen its effects, such as lowering the emissions of road vehicles and encouraging greater use of public transport.

Professor Kumar added: “Our past research motivated us to set-up the MAPE (Mitigation of Air Pollution Exposure to young children) project that aims to develop targeted mitigation strategies and solutions. We are working together with industrial partners to develop innovative technological solutions and giving this aspect a special attention in our on-going living lab activities, including community and stakeholders’ engagement, part of our another in-progress project, iSCAPE.

“With the multitude of evidence we set out in this review, it is important that everyone across the country begin a full and frank conversation about pollution and the impact it has on our most vulnerable – from parents and community leaders, to government officials and industry.”

The study suggests a range of mitigation actions such as controlling emissions of road vehicles, and ‘passive’ actions such as roadside hedges between vehicles and pedestrians could address the issue as well as potential technological solutions to the issue.

Prof Jonathan Grigg, from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, who was not involved in the research, said the findings were a "major concern".

"To help protect children's health we must promote alternatives to cars fuelled by petrol and diesel," he added.

The study was published in the Environment International journal and can be found here.