The Foundation Level (Basic) Food Hygiene Training for Safety: Distance Learning Course

Contents : Module 1 Food Hygiene Module 2 Micro-organisms Module 3 Food Poisoning the how and why? Module 4 Temperature & Micro-organisms Module 5 About Legislation Module 6 Contamination & cross contamination Module 7 Types of Food Hazards Module 8 Personal Hygiene Standards Module 9 Storage & Temperature Control Module 10 Premises; The Design and Construction Module 11 Cleaning and Disinfection Module 12 Pests and Control of Pests Module 13 Waste Disposal Module 14 HACCP

Module 1 Food Hygiene This module will introduce you to the term “food hygiene” and what it means by the term safe food and we will briefly look at some of the common causes of food poisoning. Surveys have over the years shown an alarming level of food poisoning with some 4.5M people per year estimated to have suffered from food poisoning within the UK (and that is only the reported cases) Some cases never get reported for example after a nice meal out you wake up with a funny tummy and put it down to drink or some other reason but still went to work the next day. Did you think to report this to your supervisor/manager Probably not!!

You will find out later in this course that it is a legal requirement of food handlers to report such incidences to their supervisor/manager if they suspect that they may be suffering from food poisoning What reasons are usually associated with food poisoning: Poor Hygiene, Simple mistakes made during preparation, processing or storage of foods.

With some training you will learn to identify those mistakes and rectify them. Food poisoning is the result of eating contaminated food What is contaminated food? It is food that quite simply has something in it that should not be there! Later on in a further module we will look at HOW food becomes contaminated The usual symptoms of food poisoning are: Diarrhoea Vomiting Nausea-feeling sick Stomach aches or cramps Fever

These symptoms usually start between 1 and 36 hours after eating contaminated food items. Some people depending on the type of food poisoning they have can have some of the symptoms mentioned earlier or in fact all of them. Food poisoning can affect some people more than others for example Young children The elderly and people who are already ill These groups can be affected badly and can even die from food poisoning from infected food. The chart on the next slide shows reported cases of salmonella over the past 10 years. It also shows another micro-organism called Campylobacter you may not of heard of this one but surprisingly it is the most common cause of food illness in the U.K.

Laboratory Results (England & Wales) Information Provided Courtesy of the PHLS Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre.(2005 data provisional at time of printing)