My point was that health scores on an open restaurant don't mean very much to me at all.

I'm saying that I eat at restaurants, food trucks, friends' kitchens, without paying much attention to the hygiene levels for any of them. I may love my friends dearly, but on occasion I'd swear they were trying to kill people so don't necessarily trust them on a food safety level (trying to pop the cooked bbq food back on the same tray they brought the raw food out on, until I intervened, for example) but still eat at their houses, trusting that my fairly robust immune system will survive.

Same with restaurants in the UK, if they are open, then chances are I will be fine, they will not allow a premises that they consider dangerously unsafe to continue operating. Absolutely takeaways are normally low down the list (you also find a lot of 'old men local pubs' pretty far down the list too) because their staff are not professionally trained for the most part (no legal requirement in the UK for them to even do the basic food handling certificate, which, personally, I do think should be mandatory and would do a lot more for food safety in the UK than posting scores does). It would be interesting to see what the program does for businesses financially, but I suspect it won't change things considerably (I wouldn't look up my local Domino's score before deciding whether to order from them or Pizza Hut, and I am not sure many others would).

A low score does not necessarily mean you are going to get sick. I had a quick look at the scores for places I eat at on a regular basis when I am back home in the UK. I was pleasantly surprised that my regular Indian takeaway had a score of 5, as did the fish and chip shop I often go to. Not a great surprise, but one of the 'post-pub' takeaways that always has a line out of the door on a Friday and Saturday night scored a 1 - it's only open late at night a few times a week (I'd guess around 10pm-3am without checking), the staff don't speak English, so I am putting money on them not keeping logs, dating and rotating food correctly, the actual set up of the very small space would almost certainly score poorly. I am guessing that on any given inspection night, they would get very low marks for their refrigeration - they are simply so busy they pull things out of the fridge and leave them on the side to expedite service. The floor would be disgustingly dirty during the middle of a shift, because no one is squeezing in to try and mop / sweep dropped food during the rush. Hot food ( kebab meat, etc.) is likely not kept at a high enough hold temperature (sitting on a tray once it has been removed from the grill for example), but the place is so busy, food is moving through so quickly, nothing is getting to dangerous temperature levels sitting on the side. No, it doesn't get good marks, but do I think, from personal experience it is likely to cause food poisoning issues, no - I will still pop in for my chips in a naan next time I am in town.

To that extent, 'scores on the doors' doesn't make the food businesses any safer to eat at IMO - there have been health inspections for years, it is just that they have decided to post rankings now so people can see the difference between a place that prides itself on food safety, and those who scrape through. The ones that would have been shut down before still are, and the ones that are open are considered by the inspectors to be adequate enough not to be a danger to the public.