REHIS News

West Lothian Council’s Environmental Health team was recognised as being the best performing Environmental Health team in the UK at the 2019 Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE) awards, held recently.

The team were also finalists in the most improved service category of the awards. These awards are made by APSE as part of the annual benchmarking information submitted by local authorities throughout the UK.

Scotland is to be part of an initiative aimed at improving the detection and treatment of tick-borne diseases.

NHS Highland health board has agreed to become involved in the EU NorthTick research project hopes to develop new tests to make diagnosis of diseases easier and also develop more targeted antibiotics.

NHS Highland is one of ten partners from seven European countries collaborating to develop tools to meet the challenges of tick-borne diseases.

A new taskforce dedicated to tackling serious and organised waste crime, has been launched.

The Joint Unit for Waste Crime (JUWC) will for the first time bring together law enforcement agencies including Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), environmental regulators, HMRC and the National Crime Agency in the war against waste crime.

This year, Glasgow will hold the UN Climate change summit drawing global attention to Scotland. But what are Scottish cities doing to tackle climate change and become green? 

Glasgow 

Glasgow was the first Scottish city to introduce a low-emission zone.

More improvements have been made in the past year, such as two new camera-controlled bus gates either side of Central Station.

One of the council's latest plans is to limit vehicles around George Square as part of multi-million project that could ultimately ban parking in the area entirely.

Response has been provided to a consultation on Good practice guidance on public health action in response to detecting elevated levels of lead in drinking water. Consultation was received directly from the Scottish Health Protection Network – Environmental Public Health Group. This guidance provides best practice advice for NHS board Health Protection Teams responding to a report of an elevated level of lead in drinking water.

Five Scottish local authorities have joined together to deliver improved recycling and residual waste treatment.

East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire have signed a £700m deal with waste management company Viridor.

The contract, which is central to the 25-year Clyde Valley Residual Waste Project, will see Viridor process up to 190,000 tonnes of residual waste annually which would otherwise be sent to landfill.

Non- healthcare professionals will need a licence granted by Environmental Health Officers, to carry out cosmetic procedures such as dermal fillers or lip enhancements under proposals being put forward by the Scottish Government.

Treatments, such as dermal fillers or lip enhancements, are currently available in premises such as aesthetic clinics, beauty salons, hairdressers and other similar locations.

Non-surgical treatments such as Botox and fillers account for nine out of 10 cosmetic procedures in the UK and are worth about £2.75bn a year.

Response has been provided to the Scottish Government consultation on Steps to Improve the Operational Effectiveness of the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010.  Details of the consultation can be found here.

The ASK Italian restaurant chain has been fined for misleading customers about the contents of a dish. 

The brand, owned by Azzurri Restaurants, was fined £40,000 by Swansea Magistrates after pleading guilty to selling a food with a misleading label between December 2016 and March 2019, contrary to the Food Safety Act 1990.

Swansea Council brought the case to court after a dish described as Aragosta e Gamberoni (lobster and king prawns) contained only a small amount of lobster.

Asda and Lidl have said it will remove cartoon characters from their own-brand cereals to tackle parents being pestered into buying unhealthy choices and help combat childhood obesity

Lidl was the first to announce the move which said it was in response to nearly three-quarters of parents saying they experience pester power from their children in the supermarket, with over half believing cartoon characters on cereal packaging encourages this.

Lidl said it will rebrand eight of its own-brand Crownfield products in total and introduce new, cartoon-free branding from Spring.