Food Poisoning

The Council's Food Safety Team investigates cases and outbreaks of food poisoning. Cases are normally notified to the team by the GP following the submission of a stool (poo) sample from the patient at their local surgery. Following this notification the Food Safety Team will contact the patient and try and establish the source of the illness.

However, the team can be contacted directly by a member of the public when food poisoning is suspected. Patients will then normally be given general information and advised to submit a stool (poo) sample to their GP in order to confirm the diagnosis.

Attention!

Food handlers

If you are a food handler and are experiencing the symptoms of food poisoning (predominantly sickness and diarrhoea) regardless of whether the illness as been confirmed or not, you must not go to work and you must not return to work until you have been symptom free for 48 hours.

Children

Parents and guardians of children under 5 years of age or of adults unable to implement good standards of personal hygiene are advised to keep them away from school or other establishments until they have also been symptom free for 48 hours.

Causes of food poisoning

There are many different causes of food poisoning but they all stem from eating or drinking food contaminated by bacteria, or the toxins the bacteria produce. More information on specific causes of food poisoning can be obtained from the Health Protection Agency (external link)

Once the diagnosis is confirmed patients will be contacted and asked some or all of the questions below to try and establish the cause of their illness:

• What they have eaten, where and when.
• If they have been in contact with water, either in a swimming pool or in a river, lake, stream, paddling pool etc.
• If they have drunk any untreated tap water or unpasteurised milk.
• If they have been in contact with any farm or zoo animals.
• If they have pets and if any of them have been unwell.
• If they have recently been abroad.

Downloadable information sheets

Our food poisoning information sheets are available to download in PDF format.

Campylobacter information sheet (128 KB)
Cryptosporidium information sheet (107 KB)
E.coli information sheet (118 KB)
Giardia information sheet (130 KB)
Salmonella information sheet (130 KB)
Shigella information sheet (118 KB)
Suspected food poisoning information sheet (119 KB)
Typhoid and paratyphoid information sheet (118 KB)
Norovirus leaflet (231KB)


The documents on this website can be downloaded and are published using the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).  To view or print these documents, Adobe's Acrobat PDF reader is required which can be downloaded from Adobe Systems' website (external link).