Ship Inspection

Annually there are over 9000 vessel arrivals within the Hull & Goole Port Health Authority area. These ships carry passengers and cargoes of all types from all over the world. The standards of hygiene found by our Inspectors do vary.

Whilst we are readily available to give advice, sometimes the only remedy is to take enforcement action under the available legislation.

The Public Health (Ships) Regulations 1979 (as amended from 15 June 2007), the International Health Regulations 2005, the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the Food Safety Act 1990 (and Regulations made thereunder) are the main legislative controls.

UK legislation is available on the Office of Public Sector Information website.

A Food Standards Agency Code of Practice gives guidance to Inspectors in applying the Food Safety controls.

Our Inspectors visit and inspect ships according to risk-based criteria. The inspections are multi-purpose in combining checks on crew and passenger health, infectious disease control, food hygiene, water and food sampling, the sanitary condition of the ship, pest control (which includes the issue of Ship Sanitation Control Exemption Certificates or Sanitation Control Certificates as required under the International Health Regulations and Public Health (Ships) Regulations), cargo related inspections and pollution investigations. We are also responsible for checking for the presence of animals on board ship and taking enforcement action as necessary.

The WHO Guide to Ship Sanitation can be found here.

Our charges for Ship Sanitation Certificates are based on the APHA national recommended scheme as shown below.

From 1st April 2011

With the exception of:

• Vessels with the capacity to carry between 50 and 1000 persons - £320
• Vessels with the capacity to carry more than 1000 persons - £550

Extra charges, based on actual costs, may be added for exceptional costs such as launch hire, out-of-hours duty, travel and re-inspections of ships subject to control measures.

We work closely with other Government Agencies such as H M Revenue & Customs, DEFRA and have a Memorandum of Understanding with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to ensure consistency of enforcement and effective liaison.

We operate a 24 hour Standby system to receive messages regarding any relevant matters and respond accordingly. (See our Contact Page for details).

We can take and submit drinking water/ice/swimming pool water samples for bacteriological examination on request. There may be a small charge for this service and a laboratory report will be provided together with a certificate. Please contact the Hull Office for further details or service requests.

We have published a guidance leaflet for the control of Legionella bacteria in ships water supplies. This is available for downloading below. We can also take drinking water samples for Legionella testing on request (Mon - Thurs).

General ship hygiene advice is available form the EU Shipsan website.

Advice on ships drinking water can be found in the HPA booklet which can be ordered by clicking here.

Click here for legionella control advice leaflet