World Environmental Health Day

26 September 2014

26 September has been declared World Environmental Health Day by the 

International Federation of Environmental Health. This year’s theme is Addressing Environmental Health Inequalities.

Full details available at http://www.ifeh.org/wehd/index.html

Training Adviser(Food Safety/Health and Safety)

I am delighted to announce that Raymond Hubbocks has been appointed to the post of Training Adviser (Food Safety/Health & Safety). Raymond, currently a member of the Institute’s Council and a Lecturer with Forth Valley College, will take up his post on 30 June and we look forward to welcoming him to the team.

Photo caption: Raymond Hubbocks with Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal in April last year

Tom Bell

Chief Executive

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published its annual accident and injury statistics for 2009/10. The new figures confirm that Britain has the lowest rate of fatal occupational injuries in Europe and one of the lowest levels of work-related ill health. In Britain between April 2009 and March 2010 there were 152 workers fatally injured (down from 179 in 2008/09), 26,061 major injuries (down from 27,894) and 95,369 injuries serious enough to keep people off work for three or more days (down from 105,261). Full details available on the HSE website www.hse.gov.uk/press/2010/hse-statistics2010.htm.

CIVIC GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) ACT 1982

Section 44(1)(b), 2  and Schedule 1

Licensing of Skin Piercing and Tattooing Conditions

LOCAL AUTHORITY IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE 

Version 1.7 

Scottish Licensing of Skin Piercing and Tattooing Working Group May 2014

The Civic Government(Scotland)Act 1982(Licensing of Skin Piercing and Tattooing)Order 2006 introduces a mandatory licensing scheme for practitioners operating in Scotland who carry out any form of skin piercing or tattooing, and also for premises from which any of these practices are offered. The purpose of this licensing scheme is to introduce a national regulatory framework for the industry, ensuring consistent controls are put in place to manage and reduce the risks to public health arising from these activities. Responsibility for inspection of premises and enforcement of the new licensing scheme will be with the Environmental Health Department of your Local Authority. To assist with the implementation of the order an implementation guide has been compiled that details best practice information to assist officers in making decisions at a local level. This is seen as an open document and is available to download. In addition full national licence conditions have been compiled that have been adopted by each of the thirty two local authorities to again ensure consistency. They are also available to download. The general licence conditions cover the following: General state of repair of the premises. Physical layout of the premises. Waiting area requirements. Treatment area requirements. Cleaning, disinfection and sterilisation arrangements. Arrangements for waste and sharps disposal. Operator and equipment requirements. Client information, consent forms and record keeping.

I would like to introduce myself as the Institute’s new Director of Training following the retiral of Graham Walker in March 2014.  Graham will be much missed, having been part of REHIS for many years, but I am confident that I will step up to the challenge to continue to strengthen the Institute’s Community Training activities.

I would also like to welcome Angela Flynn, Administrative Assistant, to the team who will be supporting Margaret O’Hare. Angela replaces Marlene Wood who retired in April after over 10 years with REHIS. Both Margaret and Angela will continue to offer the same high standard of service which you have come to expect.

Our training centres have been tremendously busy with an enormous amount of courses being delivered – thank you!  A victim of this success is that the certificates are taking a little longer than normal to process and again I thank you for your patience.

Many of you I have met in person, but there are equally as many that I have not and I look forward to meeting you at the Annual Trainers’ Update in October, if not before.  However, if you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me on  jm@.

Best Wishes

Jackie McCabe

The John Craigs Student Award was introduced to commemorate the life of the late John Craigs and his meritorious service to Port Health. The winner of the award will receive a cheque for £200 and will be invited for an all expenses paid day at the APHA conference, where the award will be presented.

Students are invited to submit a dissertation or portfolio demonstrating their knowledge, skills and experience in an aspect of port health. Full details of the award and how to apply can be found by downloading the attached document. All entries are to be submitted to VCameron@hssd.gov.gg by 30 June 2014. 

Annual Public Health Conference – “Health in a Changing Scotland: The ball’s in our court”

Thursday 6th and Friday 7th November 2014

Macdonald Aviemore Resort

The Faculty of Public Health are now accepting abstracts for this year’s conference.

Please find attached the Call for Abstracts brochure.

This will provide you with more information about the conference and how to submit your abstract.

For further information please go to www.fphscotconf.co.uk

 If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Jill Hopper

Jill Hopper

Event Coordinator
SHSCEvents

NHS National Services Scotland
Crewe Road South
Edinburgh
EH4 2LF

T: 0131 275 6497
F: 0131 315 2369
www.shscevents.co.uk

A big thank you to all the delegates, speakers, session chairmen, guests and staff for making this year’s Annual Conference such a success.

We heard twenty excellent papers, were honoured to have Michael Matheson MSP Minister of Public Health with us to deliver his Ministerial Address, raised £500.00 for the Famine Relief for Orphans in Malawi charity and celebrated 30 years of partnership with Highfield.co.uk Limited. An excellent conference dinner provided the official social highlight of the conference.

Colin Wallace

 President

REHIS is seeking a part time (21 hour) Training Adviser to provide support to its prospective and Approved Training Centres and to monitor, review and evaluate the provision of training and examinations by REHIS Centres.

See the attached documents for more information on how to apply and an outline of duties or go to the Latest vacancies column on this page.

Tom Bell, REHIS Chief Executive

REHIS Conference 2014  

This year’s Annual Conference will be presented at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh on 7 and 8 May 2014. 
Delegates are encouraged to book without delay. A programme and registration form are attached.

Northern Centre News

 Twenty-five delegates from seven local authorities attended the Northern Centre’s Wind Turbine Training Course on 13 February in Woodhill House, the Aberdeenshire Council headquarters. The course was jointly arranged by Aberdeenshire Council and REHIS Northern Centre.

Delivered by consultants from Hoare Lea Acoustics, the course covered a range of topics including recent research on the amplitude modulated (AM), component of the aerodynamic noise produced by the rotating wind turbine blades in wind turbines. This form of AM, commonly referred to as “blade swish”, is an inherent feature of the operation of all wind turbines. The driver for the research was the observation that, on some wind farm sites and under some specific (but unidentified) conditions, the characteristic and inherent blade swish noise could turn into a higher level ‘whoomping’ type sound that was audible at distances from the wind turbines that were considerably greater than the distances at which blade swish could ordinarily be perceived.

This is a subject which is causing a lot of discussion in the north of Scotland and, as you may have seen recently in the press, Aberdeenshire Council served an “ASBO” style notice served on a wind turbine development.

Feedback from the day was very good, with a variety of technical questions being asked on the good practice guide supplementary notes and planning conditions. I would suspect that all delegates found the course to be particularly useful in deciding whether or not to serve “ASBO” notices.

 We thank the REHIS Southern Centre for passing across “ready to go” seminars/training events such as this one. Bringing training courses closer to REHIS Northern members is much appreciated all and we will return the favour.

Some members were chasing up CPD certificate for Northern Centre events and if any are still outstanding would they please contact the Northern Centre via the REHIS website. It will be useful to note that we send copies of all event registers lists to REHIS HQ in Edinburgh so verification of attendance should not present any difficulty.

Our spring seminar is scheduled for Thurs 22 May 2014, again at Woodhill House in Aberdeen, and planning is nearing completion for a fun packed and informative day. Further details will be available soon.

As always, the Northern Centre would welcome any constructive input from the membership, particularly in relation to topics for any future events. Please feel free to send any suggestions or contact the Northern Centre Management Committee via the REHIS website at Contact the Northern Centre

Bob Drummond, Northern Centre Secretary

Ian McGruther, REHIS Training Adviser, collapsed and died while officiating at the Institute’s Professional Examination in Edinburgh on Friday 28 March. He is survived by his wife Margaret, daughter Claire and son-in-law Stuart. Ian’s funeral will be held at the East Chapel, Daldowie Crematorium, Broomhouse, Hamilton Road, Uddingston at 12 noon on Thursday 3 April. The family has asked that no black ties be worn.

The REHIS office will be closed all day on Thursday as a mark of respect to Ian and his family, and to allow staff to attend the funeral service.