Food safety - infectious disease investigation

Contact: Food, Health & Safety Team, Civic Centre, Carlisle

Telephone: (01228) 817336/817559

Online Form: Online enquiry

Email: FoodandSafety@carlisle.gov.uk  

Fax: (01228) 817346

The Council's Food, Health & Safety Team investigates cases of confirmed food poisoning and other notifiable infectious diseases. The Health Protection Agency usually reports these to us after a positive result from their laboratory. This normally happens when people contact their GP and submit a stool sample for examination.

The Council's Environmental Health Officers may decide to investigate to try to prevent the spread of infection within the home and the community and to try to establish where the infection came from.

Whether or not we investigate will depend on the likely cause of the illness, whether a positive result confirming an infectious disease has been received from the laboratory, the number of people affected, the severity of the illness, and any delay between the start of the illness and receipt of the report.

Where a decision is made to investigate, an Officer will contact the person(s) with the symptoms, either by post, telephone or by visiting them and will ask them questions regarding:

• what and where they've eaten before they were ill;
• details of their symptoms;
• if they've been on holiday abroad;
• whether or not their GP has taken a stool sample and;
• if anybody else they ate with also had any symptoms. They may ask that person to provide a stool sample.