Scores on the doors

[paw81]

I am currently conducting a study regarding public knowledge of the ?scores on the doors? food hygiene rating systems that is currently in use in Warrington so that people are able to find out how hygienically the food they eat is prepared, as well as assessing how useful this scheme is and how many people are likely to use it.

 

I would be grateful if you would take a moment to fill in the following online questionnaire that should take approximately 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Although some questions ask for information such as your age group, sex and employment status no personally identifiable information is requested or stored.

 

Please click the following link to access the questionnaire:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/sotd

 

Please remember to click the ?next? button to move to subsequent pages, and the ?done? button at the end of the survey so your results are submitted.

 

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the survey, please contact me via PM

Thank you very much four your time ? your assistance is greatly appreciated.

[Gary]

Welcome to the forum Paw81.

Are you an official council source for this survey or a local restaurant owner?

I ask the question because we have an official food and drink guide on the site

http://www.warrington-worldwide.co.uk/categories/Local+Food+and+Drink+Guide/Local+Food+and+Drink+Guide

It may be worth highlighting your survey on here.

Also readers can leave comments on their dining experiences at local eating out venues.

[paw81]

Thanks Gary

 

I am actually an Environmental Health Student at Liverpool John Moores University & the questionnaire is for my dissertation.

 

The idea of making food hygiene ratings available to the public is still in its infancy really and no one has really looked into it from the public perspective as of yet, hence my study

 

As I said any and all responses to the survey are very gratefully received

[safeway56]

We had the ratings here in Newton a few weeks ago and my favourite take away was rated at a big fat zero. Did I stop using them ? Of course I didn't. They make the most delicious Indian food and I couldn't care less what number the council puts against their name. I'd rather trust my belly then a pen pushing desk jockey down the town hall.

[disgusted]

I am currently conducting a study regarding public knowledge of the ?scores on the doors? food hygiene rating systems that is currently in use in Warrington so that people are able to find out how hygienically the food they eat is prepared, as well as assessing how useful this scheme is and how many people are likely to use it.

Was filling in your survey until I got to Q5, it seems that you should hold different types of establishments to differentr standards of hygiene, which is patent nonsense.

 

 

As they should all be held to the highest standards, I stopped there.

 

As for the points system, first I'd heard of it, and sounds like just more red tape nonsense from the Health and Safety freaks. If a premises isn't fit to be served food, it should be closed down, not given some sort of warning score but carry on regardless.

[paw81]

The purpose of that question is to gauge your personal opinion on any types of premises you would prefer to receive information about over another.

 

I apologise if I didn't make that clear in the way the question was worded - I can assure you food safety regulation IS applied equally to all types of businesses.

[paw81]

I would be extremely grateful if you could spare a few minutes of your time to complete the survey linked on the 1st post ? your insight and opinion is very much appreciated.

 

Many thanks

[byrdy]

As stated before,how can i complete the survey when question 5 is nonsense in that you can't put the same rating in twice or more.Why not??Do you want us to lie just so we can complete it?

[paw81]

Q5 is a rating scale and as such that asks you to rate form most important to least important. - unfortunately this does not allow for a stating equal importance, however the last question on the survey is a free comments box where you can add this opinion and any others that you wish to, and they will all be taken into account.

[LymmParent]

Oh you boys are just being awkward! It's a question to gauge how the public prioritises hygiene amongst different establishments. We all know that everybody wants all eateries to be perfect - but that's not helpful information for Paws, is it? He wants to know in more detail. It's actually quite an interesting thing to try and do. I found myself realising that I would definitely hold a posh restaurant to a higher standard than a butty van.... which is fairly irrational, isn't it?

[byrdy]

unfortunately this does not allow for a stating equal importance

 

in which case it shouldn't be in there.

[disgusted]

Q5 is a rating scale and as such that asks you to rate form most important to least important. - unfortunately this does not allow for a stating equal importance, however the last question on the survey is a free comments box where you can add this opinion and any others that you wish to, and they will all be taken into account.

I'm not going to try filling it in again, but isn't it impossible to miss out questions? As your survey stands Q5 is unanswerable, so I can't get to the free text box.

 

TBH, the fact you think that allowing certain types of establishment more leeway in hygiene, would I suggest be at odds with your stated aim in the first paragraph......

 

I am currently conducting a study regarding public knowledge of the ?scores on the doors? food hygiene rating systems that is currently in use in Warrington so that people are able to find out how hygienically the food they eat is prepared, as well as assessing how useful this scheme is and how many people are likely to use it.

 

Surely your survey should have been structured so that a respondent can mark all equally, or as LP says, give greater importance the more upmarket the establishment, or whatever?

 

To prevent a respondent from replying how they wish, completely invalidates your survey.

[LymmParent]

Fats, Q5 asks you to rank the types of establishments in your own order, based upon how important you think hygiene standards are. So if you think that you'd give a butty van a bit more leeway than a posh restaurant, there you go, you rank them accordingly. It took me a minute's thinking, but it's dead easy once you get past "well, I want them all to be perfect".

 

If I found a hair in my soup at ?20 a bowl, I'd go spare and refuse to eat it. If I found a hair on a bacon barm from a butty van, I'd pick it off and tuck in without much thought. Expectations..... that's what Paws wants to know about.

[disgusted]

And he needs to survey the public on that? Surely a burger van comes behind a cafe, comes behind a restaurant by that criteria?

 

However I also think that's confusing quality with hygeine. At least as far as I am concerned, I'd expect exactly the same hygiene standards from any food serving establishment,. If I found that hypothetical hair, the food goes back wherever it is served.

[LymmParent]

And he needs to survey the public on that? Surely a burger van comes behind a cafe, comes behind a restaurant by that criteria?

 

However I also think that's confusing quality with hygeine. At least as far as I am concerned, I'd expect exactly the same hygiene standards from any food serving establishment,. If I found that hypothetical hair, the food goes back wherever it is served.

 

Oh Fats, for a moment there, the light of hope shone! Yes, he needs to survey on that, because some people might actually be more concerned about the hygeine practices in a burger van - on the basis that it's out there in the open and there's more need for care, whereas a decent restaurant should have a big staff and professional cleaners so there's back up to compensate for any slips by Chef? Ya see - opinions?! For some strange reason, poor Paws would still like yours.....

[disgusted]

Ya see - opinions?! For some strange reason, poor Paws would still like yours.....

 

I know, but I'm not filling in Q5, because whatever the explanation for how it's worded, I cannot agree that they are subject to different criteria. I would expect a far better standard of prep in an a la carte restaurant, which is why you'll never see two sausages stuck between a bap, with self service red and yellow plastic bottles on hand there.

 

Hygiene, sorry, they should all be the same, indeed I'm pretty sure the environmental health would follow just that line.

[LymmParent]

Yes, Fats, of course that is the case. They all have to meet the same requirements. But over and above that, don't you have the slightest degree of differentiation on this issue when you go out to eat?

 

Paws, I'd give up on this one if I were you, mate!

[Lt Kije]

answered all questions, question 5 is crap though

[byrdy]

answered all questions, question 5 is crap though

 

So how did you answer it then?

[LymmParent]

answered all questions, question 5 is crap though

 

So how did you answer it then?

 

To the best of his ability in the spirit of assisting a fellow poster. Like the rest of us..... give it a go!

[paw81]

Thought I would just come back here and cap this thread off now that my survey is closed and I?m writing it up. In the end I got 59 completed surveys between here and the RFL fans forum which isn?t bad all things considered.

 

Just to give a final answer to the question 5 saga (and yes I admit I could have worded it better to make it more easily understood) the final results are below, which are an average of all participants 1-6 responses. Higher numbers are better;

 

A supermarket (4.19)

An up market Restaurant (4.08 )

A pub that servers food (3.49)

A buffet style restaurant (3.29)

A mobile caterer (3.14)

A take away restaurant (2.81)

 

This basically indicates who we collectively trust more to be hygienically preparing our food. It?s interesting how a supermarket out scores an up market restaurant but this could possibly be to do with the huge amounts of money that the big chains can spend on advertising and PR to convince us they are doing a good job.

 

Another interesting thing that came out is the role of the local media in advertising the scheme. The questions that asked people to name individual places they had / had not visited after learning their scores showed that most of the time there had been an article about the premisis being particularly good or bad in the guardian at some point in the last few years after checking in their web archives.

 

Just regards the ?its for health and safety freaks' comments, I?d suggest that you go and watch the video attached to this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/8181106.stm. I think it speaks for itself.

 

A massive thank you to everyone who took the time to respond anyway

[LymmParent]

What a nice post, letting us know the outcome. Thanks for that, Paws! I am delighted to find that my prejudices and expectations in food prep are normal. There's so liitle in my life that is......

 

Hope the rest of your research goes well too.

[Peter T]

I am delighted to find that my prejudices and expectations in food prep are normal. There's so liitle in my life that is......

 

 

Now why doesn't that surprise me?

[disgusted]

What a nice post, letting us know the outcome. Thanks for that, Paws! I am delighted to find that my prejudices and expectations in food prep are normal. There's so liitle in my life that is......

 

But how do you know it's normal? The survey didn't allow for the full range of possible answers, which needed one simple addition, "all equally".

 

I am pretty convinced if that had been added, many, if not most, would have ticked it, like I say, this is not about where should serve better food, but where hygiene standards should be better, and I refuse to believe (to use your example) that anyone would accept a hair in their sandwich from a street burger van.

 

Those who responded, and like I say, filled it in as best they could, by definition render the results meaningless.

[paw81]

Part of the process of writing up includes writing about what went wrong and what I should have done better ? much of this has been discussed here and will give me plenty to write about.

 

Before I came here with my little survey I did a pilot survey where, as has been discussed here you could mark all premises as being equally important. What happened? Everyone marked all premises types as being 'most important' which told me absolutely nothing apart from the fact that people thought food hygiene was important - and there was already a question in asking that anyway

 

So I changed it to what it was. I'm not for one second arguing that it was perfect but at the end of the day it gives me a set of results that make some kind of sense.

 

The main purpose of the study was to look at demographics anyway. For example its came out that as peoples income increases so does the likelihood that they'll know of the scheme. Now take that back to the chippy in the BBC news item I posted above that made those families ill. Anyone that knew it scored zero will have knew that it had, knew what that meant and knew to avoid it. And so who got ill? The less well off members of society that didn?t know about how poor it was.

 

Anyway thanks again for the discussion - made sure the thread stayed at the top of the forum honestly think some of you would argue that the world was flat just for the sport of it though!