We hope that you have all fully recovered from the festivities, have successfully avoided any seasonal bugs (food-related or otherwise) and your New Year’s resolutions are still going strong.

So Christmas is over for another year and people are now grabbing the travel brochures and searching online for their summer break. For those in question, there is a great entry on Travel Rants which provides you with a useful guide to booking holidays on the internet, covering security, research and protecting your money.

Our recent survey found that 95 per cent of those who booked a holiday didn’t consider the health and safety standards of the resort until it was too late. Why is this?

So, our New Year’s resolution at Check safety First HQ is to work harder to bring this figure down and change the public’s attitude. The challenge begins…

For those who were up bright any early today, you may have seen Check Safety First’s very own Jason Burnett on BBC Breakfast offering advice on how to avoid food poisoning this Christmas.

A big round of applause to Jason, who is a natural on TV.

BBC1 - December 25th 2008

A short but sweet blog entry for Christmas Eve as we are sure that everyone is very busy with their final preparations before the big day. However, if you do have a spare five minutes, we would recommend that you watch the Food Standards Agency’s viral Christmas video. It raises the important issue of food safety this festive season in a humorous way and certainly left everyone at Check Safety First HQ with the giggles.

Joking aside, it does have an important message and we urge anyone that is cooking for the family to remember the five Cs this Christmas:

Cleaning – yourself and food preparation areas

Cooking – make sure that the food is thoroughly cooked through and piping hot before serving

Cooling – ensure that any leftovers are cooled and refrigerated as quickly as possible, preferably within 90 minutes

Cross-contamination – always store raw meats at the bottom of the fridge so that the juices cannot drip onto other fresh food.

Consumption – eat any leftovers within two days of cooking. If you are still eating turkey come 5 January you are asking for trouble.

All that leaves us to say, is we hope that everyone has a very happy and food poisoning free Christmas. See you in 2009.

Unless you have been in hibernation trying to avoid the run up to Christmas, you would have heard lots in the news about the surge in the cases of norovirus otherwise known as “the winter vomiting bug”, exacerbated by the sharp rise in flu infections. Groups are estimating that 100 hospital wards have been closed because of the outbreak and that many A&E departments have been put on ‘black’ alert.

Of course this isn’t a new problem, in fact in January of this year it was reported that three million people had been struck down with the illness. That said, for anyone that has contracted norovirus it can be a very unpleasant and upsetting experience.

Once contracted, norovirus is something that can’t be avoided but there are some things that patients can do to make the ride a little smoother:

- While there is no specific treatment, you must let the illness run its course. Have plenty of rest and drink lots of fluids to avoid dehydration

- Good hygiene is essential, wash your hands regularly and thoroughly with soap and water

- Avoid direct contact with other people. Norovirus is extremely contagious and is easily passed from person to person.

- While the symptoms only usually last for 48 hours, it is vital that you wait at least another two days after all the symptoms have gone, before returning to work or school.

As regular readers of the Check Safety First blog will remember, last month we ran a web poll to find out what holidaymakers look for when booking a holiday? – Location, facilitates, star rating of the hotel, price or health and safety standards. And if we are honest, we were slightly dumbstruck by the results.

95 per cent of respondents did not consider the health and safety standards of hotels and resorts before they book their annual break. The research also revealed that 76 per cent of holidaymakers only looked at location and price when booking, and did not consider the safety standards of the resorts at all. Surprisingly, as little as 11 per cent of consumers considered the facilities of the resort as a priority before making their final purchase decision.

While, it is inevitable that location and price will be high on the list for travellers when booking their breaks, we are shocked at how low down the list personal health falls. What people seem to forget is that their dream holiday in the Maldives could quickly turn into a nightmare if they contract food poisoning or injure themselves by diving into unmarked shallow water. It is essential that travellers check with their travel agent to see if the hotel has experienced any recent outbreaks and if it has a health and safety system in place.

We have a new poll up and running now and we would be very grateful if you could take an extra minute of your time to complete it – thank you J

Here at Check Safety First HQ, we aren’t the biggest fans of high street take away establishments for two reasons:

1. We much prefer sharing some good old pub grub with friends

2. Being based in Chepstow, Wales the high street isn’t packed with KFC, McDonalds or Burger King. So, the option isn’t there.

That said, a story about a KFC in Boston, Surrey that was fined more than £15,000 after pleading guilty on four charges of breaching food hygiene regulations, caught our eye. According to reports, the restaurant was found to have:

“..greasy floor, [and] the handle to the walk-in chiller was dirty with encrusted dry dough food debris. The racking in the chiller was dirty and there were dirty tiles and a build up of dirt and grime on the flooring.” – source: Boston Standard

It is important to bear in mind that these beaches took place between August 2007 and April 2008, and there don’t seem to have been any recent complaints.

While, we can’t comment specifically on this case, we would recommend that consumers follow their gut instincts and expect the same standards of food hygiene at every food outlet – whether a Michelin starred restaurant or your local kebab house. If the establishment seems dirty and the quality of the facilities questionable, you are well within your rights to ask to inspect the kitchen. Alternatively, you might wish to go elsewhere.

In the Boston KFC instance, this is what the fast food chain had to say:

“Hygiene is of the utmost importance for KFC and this court case relates to historical issues when the store was experiencing staffing and management problems. We have since not only introduced new management but also sold the store to one of our franchisees who has continued to address any [hygiene] issues and we are satisfied the restaurant has returned to our usual high standards.”

Here at Check Safety First HQ we are still bemused after the well respected Delia Smith advised consumers that people without enough space in their fridges should keep cooked turkeys in the back of their cars, or in garden sheds, in order to keep them cool.  Unsurprisingly, The Food Standards Agency has hit back, warning festive chefs not to follow Delia’s advice, unless all they plan on dishing up this Christmas is a big dose of food poisoning.

We spend our working days going into hotels and restaurants, advising the owners and staff on how to keep their customers safe and, to be honest, after a decade of doing this job we believed that we were unshockable.  Oh boy, has Delia proved us wrong.

Ten million turkeys are sold during the festive season and 20 per cent of food poisoning outbreaks are poultry-related, with December being the most common month for food poisoning outbreaks.  It is the responsibility of organisations like us, and public figures like Delia Smith, to set an example to consumers, advising them on how to stay safe at Christmas.  While food hygiene might not be the first thing on your Christmas list, vomiting and diarrhoea is not a gift that anyone wants to receive.

Perhaps Delia should stick to her day job - cooking - rather than looking at storage options…

Last week, Hollywood actor Josh Hartnett had to pull out of four performances of the West End play, Rain Man, after contracting food poisoning. He was taken to hospital after suffering from intense stomach pains, where they confirmed that the tinseltown star was suffering from the food-related illness.

Anyone that has experienced food poisoning, will understand how incapacitating and frightening this illness can be for the patient. Josh is the second celebrity in the last month to have suffered this ill-gotten fate, and for this reason we have put together some tips for the stars (or the general public) to follow if they do fall victim:

1. Unfortunately, once you get food poisoning there is little you can do except let it run its course.  The most important thing is not to get dehydrated.  Drink plenty of water - little and often.  It’s often a good idea to use rehydration salts for children to ensure that they keep their fluid levels high.
2. Keep yourself to yourself, in some cases the infection could be passed on to others.
3. Blockage tablets don’t solve the problem of diarrhoea.  The body needs to rid itself of the toxins so, unless it is absolutely vital, tablets should be used sparingly.
4. Antibiotics are occasionally prescribed to treat some cases. Live yoghurt and honey, contain natural “good bacteria” and may help the recovery.   
5. If the symptoms continue or are severe - excessive nausea and vomiting, high temperature or bloody diarrhoea - then consult your doctor immediately.
6. If you think that your illness was caused by food prepared outside the home, report the incident to your local environmental health service.

It is reported that four in ten British tourists will suffer from stomach bugs during their annual holiday and that travellers on package breaks are the most susceptible. So, what should hotels do to convince customers to keep returning to their resort?

A great example is the Coogee Bay hotel in Sydney, Australia, which recently experienced a food hygiene-related incident. But, instead of passing blame or refusing to comment, the hotel was quick to install preventative measures. These included: six security cameras in food preparation areas; inviting health authorities to do monthly audits of their kitchens; and launching a website for customers to provide comments on the hotel’s standards. Not only does this demonstrate the hotel’s commitment to food safety, but also that it is also keen to improve on other areas to ensure a better quality of stay for its visitors. This reassures holidaymakers that it is safe to keep returning.

What would a hotel need to do to convince you it was safe to stay in after a food poisoning outbreak?

This week we are pleased to announce that our first hotel in the Czech Republic, the Hotel Barceló in Prague, is available on CheckSafetyFirst.com. This hotel has achieved exceptional standards in health and safety, and is now eligible to be listed on our global database for the travelling public.

We are very proud of this, not only because it is Check Safety First’s inaugural hotel in the country, but it’s also our first foray into Eastern Europe.

With people’s purse strings tightening due to the credit crunch, travellers are looking closer to home for their annual holiday, bookings for destinations like the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland predicted to almost double over the next two years. So it’s great to see that Eastern European hotels are taking the health and safety of their guests very seriously.

We hope that the Hotel Barceló is the first of many from this fast growing destination to be eligible for the site.