Support individuals to eat and drink

Handout 6: Hygiene and hand washing

Learning outcome 2 Assessment criteria 2.2

Food poisoning happens when people eat organisms or toxins in contaminated food. Most cases of food poisoning are from common bacteria like Staphylococcus or E. coli. Food poisoning can affect one person or it can occur as an outbreak in a group of people who have all eaten the same contaminated food. Those most vulnerable to food poisoning are older people, children, those with a weaker immune system and people who are ill.

Personal hygiene and food safety

Before preparing or serving food or supporting individuals to eat or drink, you should wash your hands thoroughly (see below).

Other precautions you should take include:

  • hair should be away from your face
  • any cuts covered with a blue plaster
  • you should wear personal protective clothing provided, a disposable apron to prevent your clothing contaminating any food -- these are usually colour coded, so that you should use a different coloured apron to serve food.

How and when to wash your hands

Wash hands regularly when preparing food but especially:

  • after going to the toilet
  • before starting to handle food
  • in between handling raw and cooked food
  • before eating
  • after touching your nose or mouth
  • after handling refuse/rubbish.

The action of rubbing your hands in soapy water removes the dirt from the skin surfaces which is rinsed away with the lather.

You must make sure you wash all surfaces of your hands.

  1. Wet hands under hot, running water
  2. Apply liquid or antibacterial soap
  3. Rub palm to palm
  4. Rub right palm over back of left hand and left palm over back of right hand
  5. Rub palm to palm interlacing fingers
  6. Rub with backs of fingers gripped by opposite palm, each hand in turn
  7. Rub right thumb in left palm round and round and repeat with left thumb in right palm.
  8. Rub round and round with fingers of right hand in left palm and similarly with the other hand.
  9. Dry thoroughly with disposable, paper towels.
  10. Turn hand-operated taps off after drying hands, using a paper towel to prevent contamination.

Take care to include the areas most commonly missed, which are:

  • thumbs
  • fingertips
  • cuticles
  • wrists
  • mid-palm
  • backs of hand
  • finger webs.

Equipment

Where possible, it is best to use equipment as below:

  • liquid soap – bars of soap harbour germs
  • elbow or foot operated tapsprevent contamination of hands from taps
  • disposable paper towelsshould be used to dry your hands
  • use hand cream frequently to keep skin moisturised and protect nail beds
  • waste bins should be foot operated to prevent contamination of hands.

Alcohol hand gel

Alcohol hand gel does not remove dirt from hands, but does remove germs from clean hands. It is an extra precaution to be taken, especially if you have been involved with assisting people with toilet needs prior to serving or handling food.