Appeals and re-visits
Following a hygiene inspection of your premises by a food safety
officer, you will be told in writing what your food hygiene rating
is.
If you think that the rating is wrong or unfair, in other words
it does not reflect the hygiene standards at the time of
inspection, you can appeal against this.
It is a good idea to speak informally first of all to the food
safety officer that undertook the inspection of your premises. You
will be given their contact details when you are notified about
your rating. This will help you to understand how your rating was
worked out and to see if you can resolve the matter without having
to appeal.
If you still think the rating given is wrong or unfair, you can
lodge an appeal. To do this, you should complete the standard appeal form (below) and send
this to our Senior Environmental Health Officer for food. You will
be given their contact details when you are notified about your
rating.
How to appeal
You must lodge your appeal in writing (you can send an email)
within 14 days (this includes weekends and public holidays) of
being notified of your food hygiene rating. You will be told the
deadline for appealing when you are notified about your rating. If
you do not appeal within this time, we will publish your food
hygiene rating online at www.food.gov.uk/ratings (external
link).
If you lodge an appeal, the website will show that your food
hygiene rating is ‘awaiting publication’. We will review your case
(in some circumstances a further visit to your premises may be
required) within 7 days.
Re-visits
You will automatically be given a new food hygiene rating each
time your premises are inspected by us. The frequency of these
planned inspections are dependent on the risk to people’s health.
The greater the risk, the more often you will be inspected.
If you make the improvements to the hygiene standards required
by the Environmental Health Officer, at your last planned
inspection, you can ask for one re-visit before the next
planned inspection. The hygiene standards in your premises can be
reassessed with a view to giving you a new and higher food hygiene
rating. The officer will be looking at standards generally, not
just at the specific areas you have been working to improve.
Therefore your hygiene rating could go down and not up, and you
will not be able to get a new rating until your next planned
inspection which may not be for some time.