Food Handling Medicals
Food safety risks transcend an individual company, sector and even country, making it of global importance that employers prioritise the safety and health of their workers who handle food. Regular medicals and surveillance are crucial in the prevention of food-borne diseases.
A food handler is a person who, in the course of their normal routine work, come into contact with uncovered food not intended for their personal use.
An extensive set of regulations are applicable to all food handlers, including those working in restaurants, cafés, shebeens and taverns, as well as caterers/suppliers at special events.
In addition, R638: Regulations Governing General Hygiene Requirements for Food Premises, the Transport of Food and Related Matters gazetted in 2018 states that:
Food, a facility or a container may not be handled by a person:
(a) who has on his or her body a suppurating abscess or a sore, a cut or an abrasion, including other skin lesions, unless covered with a moisture-proof dressing which is firmly secured to prevent contamination of the food;
(b)
(i) who has reported or who is suspected of suffering from or being a carrier of a disease or condition in its contagious stage likely to be transmitted through food, which includes jaundice, diarrhoea, vomiting, fever, sore throat with fever and discharges from
the ear, eye or nose;
(ii) a person referred to in subparagraph
(iii) may only resume handling food, a facility or a container if the person submits a certificate by a medical practitioner stating that the the person is fit to handle food;
(c) whose hands or clothing are not clean.
Food safety risks transcend an individual company, sector and even country, making it of global importance that employers prioritise the safety and health of their workers who handle food. Regular medicals and surveillance are crucial Safety Act, along with a medical certificate of in the prevention of food-borne diseases.
Not only do we offer a complete medical examination with biological monitoring for salmonella, E.coli, tuberculosis and so forth, but we also educate employees about the importance of food safety in the organisational culture of a food business.
Our medicals are complemented by health interviews. They comprise the completion of a questionnaire by the employee and are aimed at a general assessment of a person’s suitability for work as a food handler in terms of demeanour, appearance and cleanliness. All relevant aspects related to environmental health matters and best practice of food handling are included in the questionnaire.
The following chart shows the test are done for each category:
Training
Services
Well-trained employees are safe employees
Your construction site is only as safe as the employees working for you – and often they are working alone, without your oversight. They need to know what to do when an unexpected event occurs in order to manage the most rapid response possible and minimise risk exposure, injuries and even deaths.
We can help you with your safety training programme either on-site or at our head office in Midrand, where we have classrooms as well as scaffolding to train employees working on heights. This division aims to take the burden of compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act away from you so that you can focus on your core functions.
Our training is certified by the Health & Welfare Seta and the Construction Seta. We specialise in:
- Working on heights Scaffold erecting and inspection
- First aid level 1
- Health and safety representative
- Hazard identification and risk assessment
- Basic fire-fighting
Safety Files
We will open and manage your contractor health and safety files for you, ensuring all documentation required in terms of the Occupational Health and Safety Act as well as the Construction Regulations are properly kept and maintained.
Risk Assessments
We will conduct a complete audit to assess your compliance with all aspects of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. This includes a general facility safety inspection of aspects such as storage, lighting, air handling, sanitation, hazardous products, emergency equipment, and so forth. We also develop safety plans as well as fall protection plans. In addition, we offer contractor management to ensure that contractors working on your premises are in compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act. This ensures that their activities do not place you at risk of non-compliance.
Incident Investigation
We can investigate all incidents in the workplace and help you to develop and implement action plans to prevent them happening again.