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Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food;Meat Hygiene Service

Answer

Mr. Campbell-Savours: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many veterinarians have been dismissed for failure to ensure compliance with health inspection regulations over the last 36 months. [13] Mr. Rooker: The Neat Hygiene Service was established as an Executive Agency of MAFF on 1 April 1995 and took over responsibility from local authorities for meat hygiene and inspection in licensed fresh meat premises. Operational and staffing matters are the responsibility of the Meat Hygiene Service and I have asked the Chief executive to reply to my hon. Friend. Letter from Johnston McNeill to Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours, dated 21 May 1997: As Chief Executive of the Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) your Parliamentary Question to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food concerning the number of veterinarians dismissed for failure to ensure compliance with health inspection regulations over the last 36 months has been passed to me for reply.(13) The Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) was established as an Executive Agency of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) on 1 April 1995. It took over from some 300 local authorities responsibility for enforcing meat hygiene, inspection and animal welfare at slaughter legislation in licensed fresh meat premises in England, Scotland and Wales. The MHS has no information about veterinarians dismissed prior to this date. The MHS directly employs 45 Official Veterinary Surgeons. In addition, the Agency makes use of 131 full time equivalent contract OVS. These OVSs work together with Meat Hygiene Inspectors as meat hygiene and inspection teams in abattoirs. MHS staff take appropriate action to ensure plant operators comply with the relevant hygiene, inspection and animal welfare legislation. The MHS operates a clear hierarchy of enforcement starting with informal advice and guidance escalating, where problems persist or are severe, to the service of statutory notices, and ultimately progressing in severity to prosecution or action by the State Veterinary Service to revoke the premises licence where there has been a failure to respond to earlier requirements. No directly employed OVSs have been dismissed for failure to ensure compliance with this legislation. A number of contract OVSs have had their contracts terminated as their performance has not proved satisfactory. The MHS has recently reinforced its instructions to its staff on ensuring compliance with hygiene legislation. All MHS staff have been reminded of the importance of ensuring full compliance with hygiene controls, and of those procedures which must be followed in relation to hygienic carcase dressing. In particular staff were reminded that meat showing evidence of contamination must not be health marked as fit for sale for human consumption. Where there is evidence that the health mark has been applied to a carcase showing signs of visible contamination, this will be regarded, prima facie, as a potential gross misconduct, and will be the subject of disciplinary investigation. Gross misconduct is a dismissable offence. The MHS is also responsible for enforcing Specified Bovine Material (SBM) controls in licensed premises. These controls are central to the protection of public health from any risk of BSE. They require the removal from all cattle at slaughter of all those tissues that might, in theory, harbour BSE infectivity. MHS staff are also fully aware that they may face disciplinary action as a result of any failure to enforce these controls. One contract OVS has received a written caution.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

13; 294 c101-2W;294 c101W

Session

1997-98

Subjects

Animal welfare Inspections Hygiene Food Dismissal Meat Slaughterhouses Veterinary services Meat Hygiene Service

Contains statistics

Yes