<< Back Training

 

 

 

 

 

In the good old days there was the Basic Food Hygiene Certificate, the Intermediate Food Hygiene Certificate and the Advanced Food Hygiene Certificate and just about all courses were certificated by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) – not any more! EHOs used to be able to say that all food handlers needed a Basic Food Hygiene Certificate – not any more! It has all become very confusing, so in the next few paragraphs I will try and explain a way through the food hygiene training minefield.

 

Training Levels

 

Training is now organised by levels, Level 2 is equivalent to the old Basic Food Hygiene Certificate or Foundation Certificate in Food Hygiene. Level 3 is equivalent to the old Intermediate Certificate in Food Hygiene and level 4 equivalent to the Advanced Food Hygiene Certificate. There is now a Level 1 which is generally a short (3 hour) course of induction training dealing with personal hygiene, cross contamination and cleaning.

 

For more information about the levels, please click here.

 

Awarding Bodies

 

Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) – this is still the biggest and most recognised of awarding bodies. Chances are that if you have a food safety certificate it will be from the CIEH.

 

Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH) – formed in 2008 from the amalgamation of two smaller awarding bodies the Royal Institute of Public Health and the Royal Society for Health. The RSPH offers a full range of accredited courses in food safety.

 

Highfield Awarding Body for Compliance (HABC) – the new kid on the block! HABC was formed this year by the company behind Highfield Publications. It currently offers a limited range of Level 2 & 3 courses but is promising to compete with the CIEH and the RSPH across the full range.

 

The courses offered by all 3 awarding bodies are equivalent, no one body is better than any other in terms of the courses offered as they are all accredited to the same criteria by the same accreditation body. These awarding bodies sell their courses to local providers like Kent Hygiene Solutions Ltd (KHS) who then offer the training to the public, the marking and issuing of certificates is done by the awarding body. KHS is registered with all 3 awarding bodies.

 

You should be very wary of doing unaccredited courses offered by trainers or on line providers as these are generally not recognised by enforcement agencies. Look for the CIEH, RSPH or HABC logos. 

 

The Right Course for Me and My Staff

 

The legal requirement is for all food handlers to be trained, supervised or instructed to a level appropriate to their work activity. The law also requires that the person responsible for the food safety management procedures (HACCP) to be trained to an appropriate level. There is no specific requirement in law for any food handler to do any accredited training and if you are following the Safer Food Better Business pack then you can use the safe methods in that to train your staff yourself providing that you record this training in the diary.

 

However most environmental health practitioners (formerly EHOs) like to see some accredited training in every food business and it is considered good practice in the industry to do some accredited training so the following is what we, at Kent Hygiene Solutions Ltd., recommend.

 

Level 1 Award in Food Safety Awareness – There are three versions of this; catering, retail and manufacturing. These are short 3 hour courses which are very basic. They are useful for training casual staff, staff who have a limited food handling role e.g. waiters & waitresses or staff who are dealing with low risk foods only. We don’t generally recommend these courses for food handlers in small businesses as the bulk of the material can be covered “in house” by a competent person for a fraction of the cost, as long as you keep a record of the training. The price difference isn’t that great between these and the Level 2 courses so it is probably more cost effective to go for Level 2.

 

Level 2 Award in Food Safety – Again there are 3 versions of this; catering, retail and manufacturing. These are the equivalent of the old basic/foundation courses. They take at least a day and can be very good (depending on the trainer, our trainers are excellent but I know that some can be very “dry”). We recommend that all high risk food handlers are trained to this level within 3 months of starting work. At the very least we would expect that at any one time at least one member of staff on site has this qualification.

 

Level 3 Award in Supervising Food Safety – Yes these come in 3 flavours as well. We think these are absolutely brilliant courses designed for the managers/supervisors and we recommend anyone running a food business to do this course. It provides a rally deep level of understanding in a relatively short time (3 days). It also enables the manager to demonstrate compliance with the requirement to be trained in HACCP.

 

Level 4 Award in Managing Food Safety in Catering/Manufacturing- This is equivalent to the old advanced course. It is a very good course taking at least five days of intensive training. However it is not easy and is a big step up from Level 3. Depending on the awarding body there are normally two very significant pieces of course work and a 2.5 hour written exam. We would only recommend it if you are comfortable with academic study, if you are managing a significantly sized food business or if you are keen to go into food safety training yourself.

 

There are other courses, in particular HACCP courses at Level 2 & 3 which might be of interest but are probably not necessary as separate training for staff in small food businesses.

 

Refresher Training

 

Contrary to popular belief there is no time limit on food safety certificates – they do not self destruct after 3 years!

 

As long as you can demonstrate that you are still meeting good hygiene standards it does not matter if you were trained 1, 3, 5, 10 or 20 years ago! It is considered good practice to have refresher training and for those who have done a Level 2 Award in Food Safety there is a refresher training course from the CIEH which involves completion of a workbook in your own time, 60 minutes spent with a trainer and a multiple choice test. So this could prove a very cost affective way to keep you and your staff up to speed.

 

There is no currently available Level 3 refresher training but we would expect this to be available in the near future.

 

We hope that these brief notes have cleared up a lot of questions however if you want any further advice on food safety and health & safety training,  compliance with all aspects of food and health & safety legislation, Scores on the Doors, SALSA on any aspect of environmental health and how it affects your business please visit our website http://www.foodhygienesolutions.co.uk/, email colin@foodhygienesolutions.co.uk or phone 01233 811633 and ask to speak to Colin Hamer or Sally Newing.