Posted By Greg Burgess
What are the legal responsibilities in relation to food safety legislation. It is not an area I know to much about.

One of our care homes is being inspected and have been asked to provide a copy of their food hygiene policy. Is it a legal requirement to have a policy? Any info on the general requirements in relation to a care home would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Greg

Posted By Adrian Watson
Greg,

The Food Safety Act 1990 and the The Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations 1995 apply to your premises.

Regulation 4(3) requires that a;

A proprietor of a food business shall identify any step in the activities of the food business which is critical to ensuring food safety and ensure that adequate safety procedures are identified, implemented, maintained and reviewed on the basis of the following principles—

(a) analysis of the potential food hazards in a food business operation;

(b) identification of the points in those operations where food hazards may occur;

(c) deciding which of the points identified are critical to ensuring food safety ("critical points");

(d) identification and implementation of effective control and monitoring procedures at those critical points; and

(e) review of the analysis of food hazards, the critical points and the control and monitoring procedures periodically, and whenever the food business's operations change.

Methods such as S.A.F.E, and Assured Good Catering will allow you to do this quickly and more simply than full blown HACCP.

Regards Adrian Watson

Posted By Nigel Hammond
Greg

If you contact Chester Council Environmental Health Department - they do a very useful food hygiene policy template document for companies to adapt. I was able to get a copy because we have care homes in Chester. It was free - they might send you one if you ask them nicely!

I don't know what sort of care homes you have. Our organisation supports people with learning disabilities. Managers often try to resist doing simple requirements such as daily fridge temperature checks. They feel this sort of thing is institutional and not like a normal home. I often respond by saying that "If you get food poisoning in your own home, you would not sue yourself - whereas if a service user gets food poisoning their family may well sue you/us - and if you have no evidence that you did the basic requirements of food hygiene legislation then you would not have a leg to stand on".

We also look after elderly service users - for which salmonella could be a killer.

For statistics on food poisoning, look at the food standards agency website.

Just a few more pointers, temperature probes - we have care homes in lots of different counties. Most EHOs require this - some don't.

Make sure you read the sections on training, thermometer calibration and the example HACCP in the Catering Guide mentioned in a previous response.

Regarding temperature checks - the legal max for fridges is 8 degrees C. Although 5 degrees is strongly recommended. I think it used to be 4 degrees. It's minus 18 for freezers. I think the catering guide recommends two measurements a day. For most of our care homes we do one a day and this seems acceptable to EHOs - except in our cafes that serve food to the public.

With temperature checks, make sure that there is an action column on any forms or log books. So often people are happy to write down a result that exceeds the max. without taking any action!

Posted By Greg Burgess
Thanks for everyones responses. There has been some really good pointers there for me to get stuck into.

Thanks again.

Greg