Volunteers told to stop baking as hospital bans the humble sponge cake
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Volunteers at a seaside town’s hospital have spent decades baking cakes to raise money for equipment the NHS cannot afford.
But now the hospital has banned home-made cakes from its fundraising events – because of health and safety fears.
Officials at West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven, Cumbria, claim the League of Friends’ sponge cakes and tea loaves contravene guidelines.
Linda Davey, 64, a former nurse and vice-chairman of the League of Friends, said: ‘This is health and safety gone mad. We are a group of ladies who’ve been baking cakes for years, which we then sell in the hospital. It was just a way to raise funds.
‘The Women’s Institute were told they had to wrap their pies in Cellophane – and now this is happening to us. The world’s going mad.’
HOWEVER...
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... the FSA maintained last night it made no such demands on the ladies’ cakes.
Alan Davidson, the hospital’s director of estates and facilities, said: ‘We appreciate the support volunteers give to our hospitals but there are strict guidelines in place, enforced by the FSA, over food sold to the public.
'This means all food should be packaged appropriately, date-stamped and ingredients listed.
‘This is in the interests of maintaining and protecting the health of the public.’
However, an FSA spokeswoman said: ‘There is nothing in our guidelines that prevents the sale of home-made cakes at fundraising events. A common-sense approach and care that the cakes are stored properly should be taken.’
She added that the FSA insisted only that the volunteers followed ‘basic food hygiene principles’ – such as ensuring hands, utensils and surfaces were clean, food was properly cooked and chilled and cross-contamination of foods was avoided.
Feedbacks...
(As you've guessed, not many seems to have actually read the whole story)
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The HSE is nothing at all to do with health or safety, it is about control. It is part of the creeping agenda of the state to regulate even the most minute details of our lives.
- Norman, Falmouth, 23/11/2008 09:16
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it seems the FSA said nothing of the sort so is Alan Davidson, the hospital’s director of estates and facilities at best wrong at worst a carried away with his own importance jobsworth,
- John west wilts, west wilts, 23/11/2008 09:14
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Yet another example of people enforcing rules that don't exist.
They seem to forget that these people ar VOLUNTEERS .
I wonder if they would even notice if they gave up and didn't bother to volunteer any more. This is a scummy sleazy attitude towards people who want to fill a gap in services created by indifferent government organisations
- james hudson, stevenage, 22/11/2008 23:26
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The Nanny State strikes again!
- Willam Alan, Columbia MO USA, 23/11/2008 3:26
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When will these people learn. If we become too clinically clean we won't have had the opportunity to build up our immune systems to fight any unwanted illnesses. In my mother's day, young children used to cut their teeth on pieces of coal and it didn't do them any harm. My mother is now 92 and fit. So, come on, let common sense prevail for once.
- Val, Stockport, 23/11/2008 7:35
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The FSA statement says it all. Commonsense approach, Health and Safety, FSA - sounds like an oxymoron to me. Or, more likely, just MORON
- M. F. Hurley, St. Austell, England, 23/11/2008 7:55
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PC NuLab idiocy once again.
- Mark, Chorley, UK, 23/11/2008 8:28
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this is health and safety gone absolutely bonkers
- shirley, yorkshire, 23/11/2008 8:52
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Madness, sheer madness, elf and safety can go jump as far as i can say.
- Isabel, Bucks, 23/11/2008 8:59
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