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13
paid attendant should be in charge of the conveniences. His,
or her, duty should be to see that no food-handler returns to
work after using the closet, or urinal, without first having a
thorough scrub-up."
It is a matter of common knowledge that the conditions under
which foodstuffs generally are prepared, stored and handled, are
often unsatisfactory and the cause of considerable notified and
unnotified ill-health.
So far as Hackney is concerned, in some instances conditions
may be satisfactory but hygienic standards, generally speaking,
leave much to be desired. It will be obvious that the condition of
many food premises deteriorated during the war years since labour
and materials for carrying out necessary repairs and improvements
were scarce; the manpower available in the food industry was
insufficient and often unsatisfactory, while the inspection and
supervision of the premises could not be undertaken to the same
extent as in pre-war years.
These factors, combined unfortunately with a growing
tendency on the part of the public to tolerate, one might almost
say encourage, unclean handling of food, have been largely responsible
for the lowering of standards of cleanliness which there is every
right to expect wherever foodstuffs are handled, and while the
position with regard to manpower and building labour and materials
is not yet entirely satisfactory, the former shortage has eased
sufficiently to warrant a considerable improvement over wartime
conditions.
There are, of course, considerable powers in existence for
prevention of danger from unclean handling of food: for instance,
in Section 13 of the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, but those powers are
largely a question of personal interpretation and are frequently
nullified by legal arguments; and as a result, many Councils, realising
as we all do, the limitation of the Act, so far as it relates to the
prevention of contamination of food, have sought the co-operation
of local food traders through the medium of clean food associations
or guilds. There is no doubt that much can be done by voluntary
measures to bring about the desired improvement in the preparation
and handling of food.
Improvement may, in varying degrees, be achieved by:—
1. The formation of clean food guilds which are organised by
the local authority and operated principally by the traders