A Longitudinal Study to Assess the Role of Sanitary Inspections in Improving the Hygiene and Food Safety of Eating Establishments in a Tertiary Care Hospital of North India

• Published in: Indian journal of community medicine Vol. 42; no. 4; pp. 230 - 233
• Main Authors: Dudeja, Puja, Singh, Amarjeet
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: India Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd 01.10.2017; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt. Ltd; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd; Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications
• Subjects: Cafeterias; Catering; Food contamination & poisoning; Food safety; Health aspects; Health promotion; hospital; Hospitals; Hygiene; Inspection; Inspections; Laws, regulations and rules; Longitudinal studies; Original; Public health; Restaurants; Safety and security measures; sanitary inspections; sanitation; India; sanitation; Food safety; sanitary inspections; hospital; hygiene
• ISSN: 0970-0218; 1998-3581
• DOI: 10.4103/ijcm.IJCM_365_16

Food safety inspections serve two purposes; determine compliance with the law and gather evidence for enforcement if there is noncompliance. The present study was conducted to assess the role of regular inspections on food safety in hospital premises. This was an intervention based before and after study. A tool was prepared based on the Food Safety and Standards Regulations (FSSR) (in India) 2011. This included major, critical, and highly critical domains. Each item in the tool scored between 1 and 3 (poor, satisfactory, and good). Based on this, each eating establishment (EE) was given a score on conformance to FSSR 2011. Monthly inspection was made over a year and corrective actions were suggested. The minimum preintervention score was (41.28%), and maximum was (77.25%). There was no significant association between type of meal services and score EE ( > 0.05). Higher proportion of EEs within the hospital building had a satisfactory and good score as compared to EEs outside the hospital building but within hospital premises ( < 0.05). Postintervention, there was a significant change (increase) in the scores of EEs. There was a significant increase in mean scores of EEs under major domains namely maintenance, layout of equipment, monitoring an detection, and elimination of food sources to the pests. Under critical and highly critical domains personal cleanliness, training, and self-inspection by food business operators improved significantly. Regular inspections can improve the food safety standards in EEs.