Food Poisoning

Food poisoning is a common illness and about 100,000 people a year develop it. This number represents those people that went to their doctor. The actual number is probably about ten times this amount (i.e. a million people a year).

Food poisoning is preventable

There are a number of things (agents) that can cause the symptoms of food poisoning. They include bacteria, viruses, moulds, protozoa, chemical contamination, and allergic reactions to food. Click here for information about the common agents of food poisoning like illnesses. (links to external site).

Common symptoms of food poisoning include vomiting, diahorrea, nausea, fever and malaise.

If you think you are suffering from food poisoning you must contact your doctor. They will be able to arrange for you to submit a faeces sample. This is important because it is allows us to identify the particular agent that is responsible for your illness. This helps to identify where you may have got the agent from.

If you have submitted a faeces sample, the laboratory will automatically notify the Food Safety Team if you are suffering from food poisoning. You will be sent a questionnaire about your illness which you should complete fully and return to us as soon as possible. This is to assess whether you picked the agent up at a food premises or whether your illness is part of a wider outbreak. The questionnaire will ask you the following questions:

• What symptoms you have
• When the symptoms started and when they stopped
• What foods you have eaten over the last few days
• Where you have eaten
• Whether you have travelled anywhere recently
• What you occupation is
• Whether other members of the family have been ill

If there is evidence to suggest that you may have developed food poisoning after eating at a food premises, the Food Safety Team will investigate this. If the premises is responsible for a food poisoning outbreak (where lots of people have been ill at the same time) then we may take formal legal action against the premises.

Many people catch food poisoning at home. Further information is available from the "Foodlink website" (external site) on how to prevent food poisoning at home.

Updated March 2008