Category: News Item

Further actions to stop young people taking up smoking and raise a tobacco-free generation have been outlined.

The Scottish Government’s updated Tobacco Control Action Plan sets out 44 specific actions to address health inequalities and cut smoking rates in the communities where people find it most difficult to quit.

These include legislating to restrict smoking around hospital buildings, banning tobacco in prisons and establishing a new national brand for the stop-smoking service.

It also outlines media campaigns around discouraging smoking in school grounds and communal stairwells and preventing young people from taking up the habit.

In 2013, ministers set out plans to create a tobacco-free generation, meaning that when children born in 2013 reached the age of 21, their generation would not be smokers. 

Public Health Minister Aileen Campbell said:

“We all want to give our children the best possible start in life, and to protect them from harm as they grow up. One way we can all help with this is to fight the influence of tobacco over children and young people.

“Five years ago we set an ambitious target to create a tobacco-free generation by 2034. We’ve made good progress – halving the number of children exposed to second hand smoke, introducing plain packaging and cracking down on cigarette sales to under-18s. Now it’s time to set out our next steps.

“The action plan I’m publishing demonstrates our commitment to the new Public Health Priorities which include an ambition for a Scotland free from the harms caused by alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. All of these together can create a healthier Scotland.”

View the Tobacco Control Action Plan here.

The Food Standards Agency has begun an investigation following claims that traces of meat were found in food classified as vegan or vegetarian.

The Daily Telegraph tested ten vegan and vegetarian products at Tesco and Sainsbury’s and found meat in two.

According to the newspaper’s investigation, a German government-accredited food testing laboratory found traces of pork in Sainsbury’s branded Meat Free Meatballs, and traces of turkey in Tesco’s Wicked Kitchen BBQ butternut macaroni cheese meal.

A statement from FSA said: ‘The Daily Telegraph has shared information with us regarding the products they have tested. We are examining this information in relation to the allegations made… and will take appropriate action as necessary.’

A Tesco spokesperson said:
“We take the quality and integrity of our products extremely seriously and understand that our vegan and vegetarian products should be exactly that.

“Our initial DNA tests have found no traces of animal DNA in the BBQ Butternut Mac product available in stores today.”

Sainsbury’s said the meatball product, which carries the widely-respected Vegetarian Society logo, is produced at a meat-free factory. A statement stressed that Sainsbury’s and the Vegetarian Society carried out regular checks and no issues had been found. “We are concerned by these findings however, and are carrying out a comprehensive investigation alongside our supplier.”

Supermarkets continue to expand their range of meat-free products as the trend towards vegetarian food continues to increase. Veganism is believed to have grown four-fold over the past decade, according to the Vegan Society.

In addition, there are many who do not eat meat for religious or ethical reasons. The Muslim Council of Britain called the findings “distressing”.

NHS Health Scotland has published the latest data on Scotland’s relationship with alcohol. 

The report, ‘Monitoring and Evaluating Scotland’s Alcohol Strategy: Monitoring Report 2018’ found that 10.2 litres of pure alcohol were sold per adult in Scotland, equivalent to 19.6 units per adult per week. This means that enough alcohol was sold last year in Scotland for every adult to exceed the weekly guideline by 40%, every week of the year.

After a period of decline, rates of death entirely caused by alcohol have increased over the past four years, and it is now directly responsible for an average of 22 deaths and 697 admissions to hospital per week. 

People in the most deprived areas are experiencing the most harm. Rates of both alcohol-specific death and alcohol-related admissions are more than eight times higher than in the least deprived areas.

More than 24,000 people were admitted to hospital for a drink-related condition in 2016-17, with a total of more than 36,000 in-patient stays recorded over the course of the year.

The scale of the problem means alcohol-related hospital admissions are 4.4 times higher than they were in the 1980s.

Almost half (47%) of alcohol sold in shops and supermarkets last year cost less than 50p per unit – the new minimum unit price for drink which was brought in by the Scottish government in May.

Public Health Minister Aileen Campbell said: "Our world-leading minimum unit pricing policy now ensures no alcohol can be sold below 50p per unit. I am confident minimum unit pricing will make a significant difference to the harms shown in this report.

"Those that drink most heavily and live in deprived areas experience the greatest levels of harm, and they will benefit most from minimum unit pricing."

Lucie Giles, lead author of the report and Public Health Intelligence Adviser at NHS Health Scotland said: 

“As a leading cause of illness and early death, alcohol consumption and related harm remains a significant public health concern.     

“With rates of alcohol-specific deaths increasing in recent years, and alcohol related hospital admissions 4 times higher than they were in the 1980s, it is more important than ever that we continue to monitor alcohol price, consumption and alcohol-related harms to inform and evaluate policy.

“Preventative action is necessary to reduce alcohol consumption if long-term improvements in alcohol-related harm are to be realised. And with the most harm being felt in our poorest areas, we must take action to reduce the health inequalities related to alcohol.”

Hotfoot it to The Mound, East George Street and the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh on Thursday 21 June for the start of a free two-day Summer Summit to mark National Clean Air Day.

REHIS will be heavily involved in the event with our Chief Executive Tom Bell’s keynote speech at the Air Quality, Public Health and Transport seminar on the afternoon of the first day.

National Clean Air Day itself is a nationwide awareness-raising day about air pollution aimed at helping making the air cleaner and healthier for everyone.

In Edinburgh, road closures will be in place and a host of fun events and stalls are planned, including e-bike demos, an urban garden space, mural wall painting, and lots more. The celebrations will kick off at 9.30am with a public procession, leaving from Mound Place and ending at St Andrew’s and St George’s West Church on George Street. The two-day Summer Summit has been organised by the Edinburgh City Council, working with Sustrans and Paths for All.

For more information regarding the event see: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/blog/newsblog/post/1329/edinburgh-to-mark-uk-clean-air-day-with-fume-free-celebrations-on-city-centre-streets.

Scotland is aiming to be a world leader in improving the public’s health, through a new vision for organisations and communities across the country.

The Scottish Government and COSLA have jointly published public health priorities for Scotland, aimed at focussing action across the public sector and voluntary sector and in communities. The priorities are the first milestone in a wider reform of public health.

The public health priorities have been developed through a process of engagement with stakeholders from across Scotland. Feedback from stakeholders was reviewed by public health experts which helped to inform these priorities.

The priorities set a direction for Scotland’s public services over the next decade, with the aim of organisations and communities working better together to focus on prevention, to reduce health inequality and increase healthy life expectancy. The priorities recognise that health and wellbeing is created in communities and through partnerships across sectors and that mental health must have parity with physical health, including commitments to enhance suicide prevention. Some 54 bodies across Scotland have already endorsed the priorities, reflecting a growing consensus and momentum for change.

The announcement of the priorities comes ahead of the publication of Scottish Government strategies and action plans covering tobacco, physical activity, diet, substance misuse and alcohol, and the creation of a new public health body in 2019.

The six identified public health priorities for Scotland, where by working together, healthy life expectancy can improve and reduce inequalities, the priorities are:

·       A Scotland where we live in vibrant, healthy and safe places and communities.

·       A Scotland where we flourish in our early years.

·       A Scotland where we have good mental wellbeing.

·       A Scotland where we reduce the use of and harm from alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.

·       A Scotland where we have a sustainable, inclusive economy with equality of outcomes for all.

·       A Scotland where we eat well, have a healthy weight and are physically active.

Scotland’s Public Heath Priorities can be downloaded here. 

Public Health Minister Aileen Campbell said:

“We want a Scotland where everybody thrives and to be a world leader in improving the public’s health. We’ve made great progress, with people living healthier for longer. But we still face significant challenges with significant and persistent health inequalities, and not everybody enjoys good health. 

“As well as improving the quality and length of people’s lives, we also want to reduce the social and economic impact of ill-health and inequality, and help build a nation where people achieve their potential. I am clear that the NHS cannot do this alone; wellbeing is created in wider society, in communities and across our public services, and we need all of these partners to work together.”

COSLA’s Health and Social Care Spokesperson Peter Johnston said:

“The launch of public health priorities represents an important step in improving Scotland’s health and tackling the health inequalities we still face. Local government is committed to a full and equal partnership with the Scottish Government to reform public health. These priorities tackle the issues driving Scotland’s health problems and represent a call to action across the whole system.

“Most importantly, we need to put our communities at the heart of efforts to improve people’s health. Councils have a key role to play through empowering communities and bringing partners together across the public, voluntary and private sectors.”

World Environmental Health Day was launched by the IFEH Council at its meeting in Indonesia on the 26 September 2011. Every year since 2011 this date has been earmarked to celebrate as World Environmental Health Day with a particular theme celebrating an environmental health issue Worldwide. 

REHIS has featured prominently in the past, particularly in 2017 and 2016 (see IFEH website) and would like to actively participate and encourage participation again this year. The 2018 theme is 'Global Food Safety and Sustainability' which aims to support the provision of more safe food, make use of precious water and nutrient resources, and for communities to increasingly value sustainable food production.

At it's meeting on Saturday 2 June the REHIS Council decided that the best way forward this year is to contact members and colleagues in our community training network to ask them if they are involved in any projects which could fulfil the remit of the IFEH and which could become the REHIS entry this year. 

Further information concerning the theme of 2018 is featured on the IFEH website. Information about planned national/regional initiatives, including short videos if available, will be displayed on a specific page on the IFEH website.  Participation in World Environmental Health Day. Participation in previous years has raised the profile of the participant's organisation and employer. 

Any members interested in taking part are asked to confirm their interest with Tom Bell, Chief Executive by 30 June 2018.

An interesting journal article has been published by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh focusing on developments of public health in the last 50 years from a personal perspective.

The paper examines five decades of developments in public health, focusing on some of the most influential events of the period, and was inspired by the 50th anniversary of the graduation in medicine of one of the authors Former Chief Medical Officer Sir Kenneth Calman. It commemorates selected highlights from his career and, in so doing, documents a key period of challenges and transformations, predominantly from a Scottish perspective. 

It was a period which saw the evolution of the public health agenda from communicable diseases to diseases of lifestyle, the change from a hospital-orientated health service to one dominated by community-based services, and the increasing recognition of inequalities as a major determinant of health. 

This paper documents selected highlights from Sir Kenneth Calman’s career including the Aberdeen typhoid outbreak, AIDS, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, foot and mouth disease, radioactive fallout, the invention of computerised tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, and draws parallels between the development of the modern understanding of public health and the theoretical background to the science 100 years earlier.

The Journal paper can be access here. 

Scotland has met its statutory annual climate change target for the third year running, after achieving a 49% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

The latest figures, which are calculated against a 1990 baseline, show the country is set to exceed its current 2020 climate change target and continues to outperform the UK as a whole.

In western Europe, amongst the EU-15 member states, Scotland is second only to Sweden (51%) and ahead of Finland (42%), Germany (25%) and Denmark (23%).
The statistics also reveal emissions of the single most significant greenhouse gas – carbon dioxide – have fallen by more than 50%.

Climate Change Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said:
“These statistics are hugely encouraging and show we have almost halved the greenhouse gases emitted in Scotland – underlining our role as an international leader in the fight against climate change.

“We all have a role to play in that fight and I want to thank the households, communities and businesses who are working hard every day to reduce their own emissions.

“But we must go further and faster if we are to meet our responsibilities to our children, grandchildren, and future generations.

“Our ambitious Climate Change Bill will ensure we do exactly that – by setting a new 90% reduction target for 2050 and paving the way towards achieving net-zero emissions as soon as possible.”

The REHIS Award for Meritorious Endeavours in Environmental Health 2018 will be presented to Professor Kofi Aidoo at the Institute’s Annual Awards Ceremony in Edinburgh on 15 November. At this event the REHIS President’s Award will be presented to The Cyrenians for their Good Food Programme. The Council of the Institute offers its sincere congratulations to the recipients of both awards.

Environmental Health Officers (EHO) from Aberdeen City Council expressed “serious concerns” over the safety of the food being served at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Aberdeen City after they visited the premises on 8 February.

The EHOs found that staff at the DoubleTree by Hilton Aberdeen City Centre hotel were deliberately relabelling food to extend its shelf life and also falsifying delivery records.

The steps taken to conceal the exact age and freshness of foodstuffs meant the EHOs could not say whether they were safe for consumption. They immediately ordered the withdrawal of three items from the restaurant menu and the destruction of almost 100 individual food items.

They said: “Should similar standards be found by this service again, consideration will be given to reporting this matter directly to the procurator fiscal recommending prosecution.”

The EHOs’ original report noted: “We arrived to start our inspection at 9am so it was not possible for all of those foods to have been made on that day. “After discussion with kitchen staff it was found that staff had been falsifying food records and re-labelling foods to extend their shelf life.”

Some food products were deemed out of date, others potentially unsafe, while others were concerning because their exact date could not be correctly identified. One sauce was described as “unidentifiable”.

Among the other breaches of food hygiene practices, inspectors noted that “sandwiches within the walk-in chill were covered with a wet, visibly dirty chef cloth”.
Packets of naan breads were found “strewn across the floor” within the walk-in freezer, while salmon was being prepared in a manner that had the potential to be hazardous to health.

Hand contact surfaces within the kitchen, particularly fridge handles, were found to be “very dirty and sticky to the touch”, indicating “a lack of frequent handwashing by staff”.

An orange juice machine was found to be “visibly dirty and rusty on the inside” while “nobody was aware how often it was cleaned.

In all, 97 individual food items had to be disposed of, including raw prawns, fish, chicken, and red meat, “visibly deteriorated” horseradish cream, piping bags of squid ink mash, a variety of prepared vegetables and a number of sauces. Cullen Skink, ham hock terrine and a salmon dish had to be removed from menus.

In the wake of the inspection, hotel management were told by officers they were “extremely concerned to find a general lack of control over food safety risks and a lack of appreciation of the importance of food safety among kitchen staff.
It became clear that two different food safety policies were being used and causing confusion to DoubleTree staff members, while the newest policy was found to be “inaccurate, inconsistent and had not been implemented in practice on the premises”.

An Aberdeen City Council spokesperson said: “The report followed a routine inspection, carried out in line with procedure. The food business operator resolved the immediate issues at the time of the inspection.”

A subsequent inspection carried out on March 27 found that while the inspector was “pleased to find a significant improvement” there were still outstanding unsafe issues.

A spokesperson for the hotel said: “We expect to uphold the highest of standards when it comes to food preparation at our hotel. We have been working closely to fully address the matters raised in the EHO’s February report. We have been working closely to fully address the matters raised in the report. As a result we have adjusted our processes and conducted training sessions for our team members, the EHO re-visited us in March and have indicated they are satisfied with the measures we have taken.”

Every food business has a responsibility to ensure that the food they produce is safe for their customers, however when there is lack of compliance of with food hygiene regulations EHOs will take appropriate action to ensure public health is protected. This case clearly demonstrates the crucial work that EHOs in Local Authorities in Scotland undertake on a daily basis.

ASH Scotland, the national charity tackling smoking and health, has won a major international award on World No Tobacco Day (31 May 2018) for its work improving Scotland’s health.

The World No Tobacco Day Award is given by the World Health Organization to a select few groups each year. ASH Scotland has received it following decades of work advocating a Scotland free of the harm and inequality caused by smoking. Other winners in 2018 include the British Heart Foundation.

Morris Fraser, the Scottish Government’s tobacco policy lead, presented the award to ASH Scotland Chief Executive Sheila Duffy and ASH Scotland staff on Edinburgh’s Castle Street which you can see pictured.

In honouring ASH Scotland, the World Health Organization had this to say:

“ASH Scotland has shown strong leadership in persuading the Scottish Government to announce an end-game target of a tobacco-free Scotland by 2034, one of only a few nations to have done so.

“ASH Scotland was instrumental in persuading the Scottish government to announce in 2013 that it would implement plain packaging for tobacco products, successfully lobbied for Scotland’s national target to halve the number of children exposed to tobacco smoke in the home by 2020 […] and successfully advocated for a bill outlawing smoking in a vehicle with a child present.”

Sheila Duffy, Chief Executive of ASH Scotland, congratulated the British Heart Foundation and other award winners and said:

“I’m honoured and delighted that ASH Scotland has received the World Health Organisation’s 2018 World No Tobacco Day Award, the highest award given by WHO in this field. It recognises the leadership and work of our organisation over many years and Scotland’s strong ongoing commitments to reducing the harms of smoking.

“There is still much to do to reduce the heartbreak that cigarettes cause in people’s lives, and we will continue to work hard with all those in Scotland who want to make smoking history.”

The Food Hygiene Game, a training resource approved by REHIS, which we originally reported on in an article in Januaryhas made its way to Tonga.

Focus Games, the developer of the game, donated three free games to the REHIS president and IEHF representatives to take to the 15th World Congress on Environmental Health in Auckland, New Zealand in March 2018. 

Although one of the games was won by an attendee from Ireland, it was donated to Bronwyn Thompson from Australia to take with to her volunteer placement in Tonga within the Ministry of Health. 

Bronwyn Thompson played this game with the Health Inspectors from the Ministry of Health and stated it was: “fiercely fought battle with lots and banter and questions leading to chocolate as a final prize”

She also went on to say: “The game was greatly enjoyed by all and has started some conversations about how to impart and encourage learning in other areas of environmental health.”

The photo above shows some of the team playing the first game in the main office in Nuku'alofa Tonga.

The Food Hygiene Game wasdeveloped by Focus Games Ltdand is an educational board game for up to 12 players, which tests and reinforces knowledge delivered on the course in a fun and interactive way.

The Food Hygiene Game is ideally suited for structured food hygiene training courses, or as an informal learning activity in the hospitality or catering industry. It is also a fantastic resource for food education in Home Economics, Food Technology or other food related classes at school or college. 

To learn more and get your copy of The Food Hygiene Game priced at £60 (+VAT), visit www.foodhygienegame.co.uk