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Derek Allen, executive director of LACORS, goes back to his roots by spending a day as a frontline environmental health officer… They say when you leave a place, you should never go back. And as I was standing at the train station in Barking, East London, looking at the rain, I was beginning to agree. I had not walked out of this station for more than 30 years but, incredibly, my first impression was that nothing much had changed. The Wimpy restaurant was still there, as was the Spotted Dog pub and, almost surreally, an old red Routemaster bus was parked opposite. All this did little to allay the unnerving feeling I had suffered the same fate as detective inspector Sam Tyler in BBC TV's Life On Mars series – and somehow, been transported back to 1975. This was Barking as I remembered it. My first proper job on leaving school in 1975 was as a student environmental health officer (EHO) with Barking LBC. Dagenham wasn't added until later. The mid-1970s really was a different world compared with today – but with some similarities. There was an embattled Labour Government in power facing economic crisis after economic crisis, with the Conservatives, driven by a young Margaret Thatcher, laying in wait. Despite that, everyone seemed fairly happy, especially the environmental health department at Barking. I was squeezed into the smallest desk in a damp, dark corner between the filing cupboards and the drafty door. For the following three years, I trained as a student EHO, sponsored by the council, at Tottenham College of Technology at Seven Sisters. My public health training programme included three months working in abattoirs, clearing filthy, vermin-infested houses, helping clear blocked drains, being chased by feral dogs, and taking swimming pool water samples at Barking Lido in the long, hot summer of 1976. Having survived the course, I obtained my diploma in 1978, and Barking offered me a position in the elite ‘hit squad' of the food safety team, under the leadership of David Woods. I was now on my way to meet David – Barking and Dagenham's director of customer service – and I was looking forward to finding out exactly how things had changed for EHOs. Joining us was Hope Robinson, the council's food safety team leader. She filled me in on her plans for my day back on the frontline, which was to involve a food safety inspection at a residential care home in the north of the borough. Our job on arrival was to inspect the kitchen and determine whether relevant food hygiene procedures were in place and operating properly. One change form the 1970s is that there is now a helpful toolkit to help businesses with food safety compliance. The Food Standards Agency's Safer food: Better business pack helps food managers identify, prioritise and address any critical areas of non-compliance. Also, the fairly recent Scores on the doors initiative enables council officers to issue a star rating to businesses, ranging from zero stars for very poor standards to five stars for excellent. In the 1970s we rarely, if ever, wore a white coat and hat or hair net to inspect food premises. Hope made it clear I would have to wear these if I wanted to accompany her into the kitchen. My immediate impression was it was a very clean, well-run kitchen, with easy-to-clean stainless steel everywhere, plenty of refrigerated and freezer storage, sinks, and wash hand basins – all in excellent condition. The head chef and staff had all been trained, or were being trained, in food safety. Hope had a hi-tech thermometer which took the surface temperature of refrigerated foods, which confirmed they were all within the allowed limits. She also looked for possible pest infestations using her mini Maglite torch – yes, we did have those in the 1970s. She did identify a few faults – a problem with the cooker extractor and a grease filter which needed replacing, a commercial can opener needing to be cleaned, the location of the electric fly insectocutor and other minor matters. It was also clear that the Safer food: Better business toolkit entries needed to be more detailed in order to identify any problems which had been detected by supervisory staff themselves. But, overall, this was a good, hygienic kitchen. Hope then completed – by hand – the premises inspection paperwork, including the outstanding requirements, and confirmed to the manager she would award the premises four stars – a good standard of hygiene. It seemed to me that the Scores on the doors system was a great way to publicly recognise standards of food safety, and it certainly provides the incentive to businesses to comply with the legal requirements. In the 1970s, the best a business could hope for, if it was judged to be fully compliant, was a lack of a follow-up letter, notice detailing any outstanding issues or, in extreme cases, a summons for prosecution. We certainly didn't provide anything formally which told a business that it was very good. Hope conducted her inspection in a demonstrably-measured, proportionate and professional manner. I have no doubt the care home management benefited from her inspection. It certainly did not seem to me to be in any way an unnecessary burden to the business. Thinking back to how my colleagues and I would have gone about a similar inspection in the past, I couldn't help thinking that we were perhaps a little too gung-ho. Often, enforcement action with prosecution was an action of first resort. One final thing that surprised me was that, despite all the new technology, Hope did not have a PDA to capture inspection details which could automatically update the electronic records. Just like in 1975, she had to go back to the office and type up a summary of her notes, and take up some of her valuable professional time doing the paperwork. I guess you could say some things never change…

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WHITEHALL

Life on Mars?

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