Food Safety and Hygiene.

Policy Statement.

Hayfield believes that, with respect to food provided or brought in, there is a duty to ensure that all staff and service users should be kept as safe as possible from food poisoning and associated illness by the adoption of high standards of food hygiene and food preparation.

Aim of the Policy.

This policy is intended to...

• Ensure that service users benefit from having food that is of high quality, well prepared and is nutritionally sound.

• Protect staff and service users from food related illness.

Food Hygiene Policy.

Poorly prepared, stored or contaminated food can be the source of potentially fatal infections such as salmonella and listeria.  Managers and staff are responsible for the food hygiene standards within the organisation.  Hayfield believes that the effective management of food safety relies heavily on having written operational policies for the safe preparation, storage and handling of food.  

Therefore...

•  All food will be prepared, cooked, stored and presented in accordance with the high standards required by the Food Safety Acts.

Guidelines / Procedures...

• All food preparation areas, storage areas and serving areas will be kept clean, and in good repair and condition.

• All food preparation areas will be designed to permit good hygiene practice and be easy to clean and disinfect and should protect food against external sources of contamination such as pests.

• Adequate sanitary and hand washing facilities will be available for all staff and service users.

• Toilets will not lead directly into food handling areas.

• Staff and service users preparing food will take all reasonable, practical steps to avoid the risk of contamination of food or ingredients.

• All tools, equipment and surfaces that come into contact with food being prepared or served will be kept clean.

• Everyone in a food handling, preparation and serving area must maintain a high level of personal cleanliness and must wash their hands before and after handling food, wear suitable clean and, where appropriate, protective clothing such as aprons and / or gloves.

• At every stage of meal preparation, food will be protected from contamination likely to make it unfit for human consumption.

• Food handlers should receive adequate supervision, instruction and training in food hygiene.

• When serving food, appropriate hygiene standards should be scrupulously observed by all staff and service users.

• Suspected outbreaks of food poisoning should be reported to the 'Centre for Communicable Disease Control and Care Commission', where applicable.  

• Any member of staff who is suffering from sickness and / or diarrhoea which is a health hazard while handling food, should stop work at once and report to whoever is in charge at the time.

Training.

All staff should be made aware of this policy at induction as well as other Health & Safety related issues, e.g. Infection Control.

All staff (and service users, where possible,) should undertake the Food Hygiene Course every few years, to ensure that their knowledge is up to date.