Several restaurants that reports say are relatively clean face health inspections many times more than average -- while thousands of other restaurants face scrutiny below established levels, according to a review of Lower Mainland health inspections by CTV News.

Inspectors' numbers are shrinking while the numbers of restaurants in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley increase, officials say. Also, co-ordinating which restaurant to visit next is difficult without a computer system that can keep track of inspectors.

"Those are excuses that the citizens of Vancouver don't want to hear, but those are some of the realities we face," said Domenic Losito, Vancouver Coastal Health's regional director of health protection.

A restaurant in Abbotsford named Lee's Chicken was visited eight times in a three-year period, despite having performed above average in the inspections, records show.

And another restaurant on Hastings Street, Fortune Court Seafood Restaurant, was visited 12 times in three years -- six times more than the average in the Vancouver Coastal Health region -- despite performing above average in inspections over a three-year period.

The goal of the Vancouver Coastal Health authority, which covers Vancouver, Richmond and the North Shore, is to conduct one routine inspection at each of Vancouver's 7,000 restaurants each year.

However, data provided to CTV News shows that about a third of the restaurants underwent a routine inspection only once in a three-year period, though that number doesn't include follow-up inspections.

On average, the data show that Vancouver Coastal Health restaurants underwent a routine inspection about twice in the three-year period.

Even as the numbers of restaurants increase, budget shortfalls have meant the number of health inspection staff has shrunk, said Losito.

Right now, some inspectors are tasked with doing routine inspections at more than 200 restaurants, as well as follow-up inspections -- a workload that makes it nearly impossible to perform a routine inspection at all of them once a year, he said.

Losito said one reason for varied coverage could be that his agency's computer system doesn't keep track of which restaurant needs inspections next -- that's done manually.

"I'm looking for an additional tool to help us stay on top of it," he said.

In Fraser Health, which covers the area east of Burnaby and Delta, data provided by the authority showed that of the roughly 5,000 restaurants in the region, about 400 restaurants were routinely inspected once in a three year period.

Regional Health Director Tim Shum says that number also doesn't include follow-up inspections, which can happen more often. The authority has different classes of restaurants, from low-risk ones that undergo a routine inspection once a year, to high-risk ones that undergo a routine inspection as often as three times per year.

On average, the records show an average restaurant in Fraser Health faced a routine inspection slightly more than four times in the three-year period.

The authority has its own problems attracting staff, Shum said, because of a shortage of qualified inspectors.

In the case of Lee's Chicken, officials said that an inspector was using more inspections as a tool to encourage compliance with the rules.

After CTV News' inquiries, the inspector was told to go easier on the restaurant and use other means, which would free him up to inspect other restaurants.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Jon Woodward and Mi-Jung Lee