If you have more than one episode of diarrhoea in 24 hours contact your GP as soon as possible so that expert medical attention can be given.

The doctor will assess your condition and may ask you to provide a stool specimen for testing at the local laboratory. This will identify what organism if any was causing your illness.

It is quite common to get a diarrhoea illness without it being linked to the consumption of foods. Viruses can cause gastroenteritis and can be passed from person to person as well as from food and contact surfaces.

Your illness may not be caused by your last meal

Often, if people become ill with symptoms of food poisoning just after eating food from a restaurant or take-away they will be sure that this is the cause. This is not always the case as food poisoning bacteria and viruses can sometimes take quite a long time to cause the first symptom of illness - this can take up to several days. Some food poisoning symptoms do, however, appear more quickly though. This is usually because the poison or toxin is already present in the food when eaten. Sometimes symptoms will start to appear within an hour of eating the contaminated food.

If you/your doctor suspects that you have a food-related illness, please contact us on 01727 819440 and we will investigate your complaint. We will send you a Food Poisoning Questionnaire to save time you can download one and e-mail to environmental@stalbans.gov.uk.