In collaboration with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Birmingham Environmental Health, we’re several months into a project to raise food hygiene ratings in the city.
We’ve begun by targeting care homes, schools and nurseries — and I’m delighted to report, we’ve had several successes!
You’ll be glad to learn many of these places have high standards. But some — at our first count, 19 of them — have food hygiene ratings of 0,1 or 2, far below the highest score of 5 which should be the norm in such places.
So we wrote a hardcopy letter to every one of these places, reminding them of their scores and how important it is they have the highest of standards. And we’ve cc-ed our letters to Catherine Brown, the Food Standards Agency’s CEO, to either OFSTED or the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and to relevant people at the City Council, including Birmingham Environmental Health who can, of course, provide professional help in raising standards.
The old and the very young are particularly vulnerable for food-borne pathogens, hence our concentration on care homes, nurseries and schools — places where often people have no choice but to eat what’s put in front of them.
To find out if your local school, nursery, care home or any other cafe or restaurant you go to has the highest of standards, check the place out at Score on the Doors.
Scores on the Doors is a national scheme, and there’s an app you can download on to your mobile phone or computer here.