Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many instances of (a) pericarditis, (b) septic pericarditis, (c) peritonitis and (d) septic peritonitis were identified at official post-mortem inspection and prevented from entering the food chain by officials working for and on behalf of the Food Standards Agency performing meat inspections on red meat animals from 1 January 2014 to 31 March 2020.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) holds the following data. For the period 1 January 2014 – 31 March 2020 the following instances were identified at post-mortem and prevented from entering the food chain:

In 2015/16 the FSA, through consultation, with the Association of Meat Inspectors, meat hygiene inspectors, industry representatives, other Government departments, devolved administrations, academic organisations, internal and external veterinarians and others developed a more defined and actionable list of conditions surrounding animal health, public health and animal welfare.

Note:

*With red meat, the condition septic pericarditis is not specifically recorded and is recorded against the condition septicaemia.