A Day in the Life of Paul Clarke - Environmental Health

A DAY IN THE LIFE
September 16, 2008 by Paul Clarke North Norfolk District Council

Here in North Norfolk, we have a lively job looking after the Health and Safety and Food Hygiene issues in our region. One day is never the same and our working day could range from checking steak pies for foreign bodies to investigating complaints from an employee about dangerous working conditions. We have a flexi time system here which means my day can start and finish at different times every day depending on the nature of the work/inspection involved; this works very well. This is a typical working day in my life. Get to work at 08.30; check my email and plan in my diary. An investigation at a local hotel where a nasty accident has happened to an employee. I also have to visit an Adventure Park to check on their safety measures and do a risk assessment check. So, I set off to the adventure park; it’s only a year old and the owners have been good in complying with the laws, particularly as the majority of users are children. About 10.30 I set off for my visual inspection of the park, inspecting tree houses and zip slides; they all seem to look pretty safe to me. The Park is big and takes quite a long time to do my inspection but I still find time to stop for lunch. I finish off by giving the business a ‘risk score’ and move on to the hotel to investigate the accident which happened yesterday. It’s about 2.00pm and a female employee has tripped and gashed her hand on some steel wall edging however, after inspection I find that it was just an unfortunate accident. Well it’s 4.00pm and I make up for my early start with an early finish and return to the office, only to find out that I have been walking around with a hole in the rear of my trousers, probably ripped on the children’s slide at the adventure park, much to the amusement of all my colleagues! 

Posted in A Day In The Life of A Public Health Officer | September 15, 2008 by Paul Clarke North Norfolk District Council