REHIS News

On the 5 September a new Statutory Instrument (SI)was laid in UK Parliament tightening the rules to help protect the food allergy and food intolerance sufferers in England.

The new law, known as ‘Natasha’s Law’, will require food businesses to include full ingredients labelling on pre-packed for direct sale foods.  The law titled Food Information (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019, will come into effect from October 2021.

On 28 May 2019, Joe FitzPatrick MSP, the Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing, and Councillor Stuart Currie, Health and Social Care spokesperson for COSLA, launched "A consultation on the new National Public Health Body 'Public Health Scotland'".

The consultation closed on 8 July 2019 and the analysis of the responses is now available here.

The 2018 Annual Reports for Private Water Supplies has been published by Scotland’s Drinking Water Quality Regulator.

In 2018, a total of 42,440 tests were taken from regulated private water supplies (PWS) which are those supplying more than 50 people or a commercial activity. 

93.5 per cent of tests met the required standard, but 11% of these supplies had a sample that contained E.coli.

Public Health Scotland has taken a major step forward with the first Chief Executive being appointed. 

Shadow Chair of Public Health Scotland, Professor Jim McGoldrick has confirmed that Angela Leitch, currently Chief Executive of East Lothian Council, will lead the new national public health body which aims to reset how Scotland thinks about health and wellbeing.

Professor Jim McGoldrick said:

New 2019 Building Standards Technical handbooks have been published and comes into force on 1 October 2019.  

The Scottish Government publish new technical handbooks which explain how to achieve the requirements set out in the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

Aberdeenshire Council has welcomed the sentence imposed on a Peterhead man who kept a number of livestock in an unsuitable environment and caused unnecessary suffering to a pig.

Gary Stevens, of Hallmoss Farm, appeared at Peterhead Sherriff Court on 10 September for sentencing, having pleaded guilty on the August 9, 2019, to three of eight criminal charges raised against him by the Procurator Fiscal under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006.  

A £7.5 million project between the public and private sectors has been established to deliver more electric vehicle charging points across the north of Scotland.

As part of the project, SSEN will examine what electricity network infrastructure will be required to support the increasing number of people travelling to the north of Scotland by electric vehicles. Infrastructure needs for new charging points along the route of the Electric A9 will be also be identified and mapped.

Scotland is performing well on air quality by both EU and global standards, an independent review has found.

The report, published by the Scottish Government, is a review of the 2015 Cleaner Air for Scotland Strategy. It was produced by a national cross-government steering group of 10 experts, chaired by Professor Campbell Gemmell, with contributions from representatives from REHIS.

The report assess progress against the Strategy and also made recommendations on how to maintain this.

Resource Efficient Scotland have designed free packs which include a great range of posters, stickers, thermometers and other communication materials to help businesses encourage their staff to become more resource efficient.  

Resource Efficient Scotland already provides lots of free support and funding to help businesses use less energy, water and materials – and save money. 

But did you know that one of the quickest ways for any business to become more resource efficient is to simply motivate staff to adopt better behaviours? 

National Records of Scotland (NRS) figures show link between deprivation and health. 

A boy born in 2018 in one of the 10% most deprived areas of Scotland will live for 13 years less than a boy from the most affluent areas. The gap for girls is 9.6 years. 

There is clear evidence in the data tables published by NRS of the reason for this. A boy born in the poorer areas can expect to spend almost a third of his life (29.2%) in poor health.  While, for girls it is 34.5%.