Postgraduate Diploma - Food Safety & Controls

The Curriculum Learning Objectives

The learning objectives of an accredited programme have been grouped under four headings:

  1. Fundamental principles and underpinning knowledge
  2. Intervention strategies and operational skills
  3. Practice skills in each intervention field
  4. Core competencies

Universities are not required to deliver the objectives in any particular sequence and are encouraged to design a programme in a way that best suits them and their students.

1. Fundamental Principles and Underpinning Knowledge

Programmes should provide students with a sound general knowledge of the natural and human-made worlds and their systems. They should establish the context in which different stressors impact on humans and how this requires intervention, specifically:

  • The concepts of ‘health’ and ‘disease’, and how these might be measured, assessed and articulated, exploring the principles of, and strategies for, health protection, health promotion and health improvement.
  • Introduction to the concepts of ‘hazard’ and ‘risk’, with particular reference in the earlier stages of the course of how ‘risk assessment’ serves to identify and characterise hazards and establish the risk, explaining why this must be accomplished ahead of considering risk management strategies.
  • The nature of governance in Pakistan, taking this through from the role of central government (and the governments of the devolved regions) as the Legislature informed by its civil service and others, thereafter discharging its responsibilities through departments of State, non-ministerial agencies and non-governmental organisations, through to local government.
  • The nature of the Legal System pertaining in each devolved region of Pakistan, and the jurisdiction of the courts in discharging the criminal and civil law, thus establishing the means by which judge-made law complements Statute.
  • Encouraged (through exposure to published work performed across the food safety/inspection/SPS field) to appreciate why research forms such a vital part, as in all other fields, to our better understanding of ‘stressors’ at a fundamental level and informs practice through the establishment and reinforcement of the evidence-base.
  • Through frequent opportunities to practice different forms of communication, acquire the high standards of communication skills expected of a FoodOfficer in drafting reports, briefing notes, letters and other forms of written exchange, as well as to prepare and present oral presentations.

Thereafter programmes will seek to explore particular fields of professional engagement, many vital to the process of identifying hazards, elucidating risk, assessing risk and interpreting compliance against standards, guidelines and other legislative tools. Those deemed ‘key’ are:

  • The principles of microbiological, chemical and physical food safety as they relate to our understanding of health, disease, hygiene and food technology.
  • The fundamentals of mammalian anatomy, physiology and how the function of tissues and organs can be disrupted by biological, toxicological and mechanical effects.
  • The role of parasites and vectors in the aetiology of disease, as a preliminary to looking in detail at the range of pest species that share Man’s ecological niche and thus establish strategies of elimination and control.
  • Establishing the nature and epidemiological significance of a range of communicable and non-communicable diseases, identifying those that have a particularly strong environmental association;
  • An introduction to the range of approaches and methodologies employed in researching fundamental and applied physical and social science, including the use of statistics and statistical analysis

2. Intervention Strategies and Operational Skills

The fulfilment of the following objectives is a natural point of professional progression for students as they utilise knowledge of the objectives of practice and relate theory to practice.

At this point students can see themselves as the precursor to change in the behaviour of others through their capacity to inform, persuade, educate and criticise. A working understanding of these operational skills, during a placement or period of work experience, is normally essential for the skills to be properly embedded, but ahead of this much can be inculcated through close instruction from an experienced practitioner-lecturer.

Some of these are detailed below:

  • Identify, and articulate, the nature, impacts, mechanism of impact and the potential or realised health outcomes of the stressors previously studied. Identify the points where the role of the Food Officer might be best practiced as a means of intervening to prevent, control or mitigate the impact of the stressors previously studied, but recognising the need to consider the political, technological, commercial and financial implications.
  • Develop a working practice that routinely involves assimilating and integrating data from works of authority, legislation, codes of practice etc, and by mobilising the data thus acquired through local research, use it in a way that maximises the intervention.
  • Recognise the desirability / primacy of compliance strategies that through effective informal action (particularly the capacity to inform and offer advice) the desirable outcome can be achieved (and the likelihood of recurrence minimised).
  • Identify when, and how best, to adopt the educational role, having regard to the skills of the would-be recipient to make use of the information so obtained.
  • To know when best to defer to enforcement action (recognising the need for this to be proportionate, transparent and consistent) but once decided upon the pursuit of formal action, to collect & assemble such evidence that the matter is dealt with efficiently & effectively.
  • Recognise how inspections, investigations and audits (conducted with a clear idea of how to maximise their impact), and with effective engagement with duty holders (through questioning and ‘active listening’), reach an early assessment of normal practice, deduce the effectiveness of systems in place and reveal the mechanisms of control that may (or may not) be in place.
  • By setting personal goals and objectives, prioritise action (against competing influences from other sources) and in so doing demonstrate the capability and confidence to work independently, whilst learning how best to work in a team and through ‘partnership’ with other organisations, bodies and health professionals see how effective intervention strategies might arise through ‘joint working’.
  • To routinely weigh-up the effectiveness of different interventions that can be evaluated formally or informally, reflecting on how this would influence one’s future approach to intervention, and, if necessary, suggesting how one might alter or adaptthe approach to afford a more equitable, efficient and effective outcome.

3. Practice skills

We believe that there remains considerable value in representing the ‘practice skills’ in terms of technical ‘Intervention Fields’ - Food Safety and Public Health.

Public Health

As previously mentioned the public health practice skills are considered central to the role of the Food Officer, and with the transfer of the public health portfolio to Regional Government Food Officers may find themselves requiring an understanding of these matters. In pursuit of this, students completing a programme of instruction and training should understand:
  • Assessing the evidence of effectiveness of interventions, programmes and services to improve population health and well-being (focusing on the critical assessment of evidence relating to the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of health and well-being and related interventions, programmes and services) and the application to practice through planning, audit and evaluation.
  • Leadership and collaborative working to improve population health and well-being (concerned with leading and managing teams and individuals, building alliances, developing capacity and capability, working in partnership with others and using the media effectively.
  • Health Protection (acknowledging that this is the principal domain of professional activity of the Food Officer, but here focusing on the means of preventing the transmission of communicable diseases and/or protecting against the health impact of incidents that present.

Food Safety

Understand the concept of ‘hazard analysis’ in respect of food safety, and with due regard to the legal requirements (Codex, EU, FDA and Pakistan), guidance and guidelines, apply this in order to minimise the risks to health and to protect the wider interests of the consumer. In pursuit of this, students completing a programme of instruction and training should understand:

  • The range of biological, chemical and physical contaminants that expose the consumer to risk to health, or might impact on their rights as a consumer.
  • The technology of food production and packaging that serves to eliminate pathological contaminants (or inhibits their health impact) or otherwise prolongs the shelf-life of the product.
  • The examination of a range of food commodities encountered at ‘point of sale’, and by so doing relating appearance, condition and quality to the context in which the foodstuff is presented, and specifically passing judgment on its fitness and wholesomeness.
  • The means by which contamination that would present risk to health or consumer interests can be prevented (or their impact minimised) through the application of pre-requisite requirements representing good hygiene / manufacturing practice, where the focus is on ‘quality control’.
  • The principles of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) and the application of a food safety and food standards, including the standards and guidelines that assist in deciding the most appropriate course of action
  • The means by which health professionals, working together, detect, investigate and manage outbreaks of food-borne illness, thus minimising further spread and contributing to the epidemiology of particular diseases.

 

4. Core Competencies

The 'core competencies' refer to the range of skills that would be expected to have been acquired and practised by the Food Officer in training, but as yet may have not become embedded through sustained practice. The competencies detailed below are those that would be expected of the so-called ‘Day Zero’ graduate:

  • Plan and execute the appropriate inspection, investigation or audit to characterise the hazard in context.
  • Plan and execute the means by which numerical sampling, survey or surveillance data might be secured to reinforce that which is known about the hazard.
  • Using the data obtained from sampling, surveying and surveillance organise and analyse this in form that allows the determination of the level of risk against the hazard.
  • Consider and consult the available standards, specifications and guidelines that relate to the matter in hand so as to establish the extent of the hazard and level of non-compliance.
  • Using the combination of first- and second-hand data thus secured, establish the case for intervention and the options available, taking into account the likely cost and beneficial outcome, and so its capacity to eliminate, reduce or otherwise mitigate the risk.
  • Where grounds need to be found for intervention based on legislative requirements, be prepared to demonstrate how formal action offers the most appropriate course of action, and where this focuses on the strength of the evidence obtained, consider how a successful defence, if any, might be mounted;
  • Understand the Food Officers role in securing evidence (and maintaining its integrity), preparing legal summaries, taking and writing witness statements, serving legal notices and presenting oneself as a credible witness.
  • Consider the limits to the effectiveness of the Food Officer working alone, and by so doing make a case for working with others or in partnership, routinely identifying with whom this might be affected (individuals, statutory agencies, private-sector) and the contribution that they might make to the outcome.
  • Recognise that ‘reflection’ is an essential element of professional practice and that Food Officers should make a conscious effort to consider activities and interventions performed in terms of health outcome and the sensibilities of those affected.
  • Hold uppermost the need to be sensitive in all dealings with the public or commercial operators in that they have rights and responsibilities of their own, and that a successful outcome might require concessions and compromise.
  • Recognise the need to maintain the reputation of the profession of Food Officer by up-holding its code of professional ethics.