Are there Food Safety Requirements for a Childcare Provider?
The Environmental Health Association of Ireland (EHAI) recommends that where a childcare service provides food to children, relevant staff are required to have food safety training.
The childcare provider needs to have a HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Point) Food Safety System in place.
Your food safety management system allows you to identify and control any hazards that could pose a danger to the preparation of safe food. It helps you to:
- identify what can go wrong
- plan to prevent it
- make sure you are doing it.
According to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), If you are responsible for developing and maintaining your business’s HACCP based procedures then you must undertake adequate training in the application of HACCP principles.
HACCP training is a requirement
What Level of Food Safety Training Do Our Staff Need?
The Food Safety (HACCP) Level 1 course is ideal for those with no previous experience, with light food handling duties and/or performing low-risk duties (such as waiters, baristas, caregivers, kitchen porters, deli shop assistants, etc.).
This is the recommended level for all food handlers, or those working in a kitchen setting, who do not have management responsibility for HACCP.
Food Safety HACCP Level 3 defines food safety skills for management and is aimed specifically towards Catering Managers, Supervisors, Executive and Head Chefs within the Hospitality Industry, Industrial and Institutional Catering Units, along with the Health Sector, Retail Sector and Delis.There should be at least one food worker with Food Safety HACCP Level 3 on duty in a food premises.
Managers, Owners, need to be able to manage HACCP systems. They should also have a good understanding of how to implement a HACCP Programme for their workplace. All food businesses are required by law to have a food safety management system in place based on the principles of HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Point).
What Can Myelearnsafety Do for You?
Contact Myelearnsafety, HACCP Food Safety Training Consultants can be contacted for free HACCP Food Safety Advice and Guidance.
Telephone the office @ 01 278 1938 – As for Shane or Cormac
Benefits of eLearning to COVID-19 Transmission Rates
eLearning Trends
eLearning was already on the rise pre-COVID-19. For some time there has been a phenomenal growth of eLearning use among the corporate sector. 90% of corporations now use e-learning compared to just 4% in 1995. And the reason for this is obvious; with employees delivering increased productivity for every euro/dollar invested in e-learning.
Though it was trending that way anyway, the onset of COVID-19 has meant that the growth of eLearning has spread well beyond the corporate sector, to now encompass the education, healthcare, computer & info tech, retail and eCommerce and construction sectors, among others.
People working remotely, businesses moving online and people choosing to learn online rather than in the classroom – the necessary restrictions caused by Covid-19, have seen technology take centre stage in so many aspects of business and life.
There has been a two-fold benefit when it comes to reducing the rate of transfer of COVID-19.
Benefits of eLearning to reducing spread of COVID-19
Reducing the Transmission Rate
As well as the positive environmental impact of an increased uptake in eLearning, there has been a two-fold benefit when it comes to reducing the rate of transfer of COVID-19. The first, and most obvious of these benefits, is the reduction in face-to-face contact. The second benefit is the opportunity to increase employee awareness, training and general education regarding COVID-19, with COVID-19 specific courses such as COVID-19 Infection Prevention & Control, COVID-19 Compliance Officer, and COVID-19 Lead Worker Representative courses.
Looking at COVID-19 Infection Prevention & Control courses as an example, this type course provides a better understanding of the basic principles of infection control and the ability to apply standard precautions while understanding the chain of infection and an employees’ own role in the prevention of the spread of infection. All going towards reducing the transmission rate of COVID-19.
“Students acquire knowledge and skills through online and offline eLearning as well as or better than they do through traditional teaching”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) itself has taken a proactive approach to providing eLearning courses aimed at controlling and preventing the spread of infection of viruses such as the novel coronavirus. This is not surprising, as the findings from a review commissioned by the WHO showed that students acquire knowledge and skills through online and offline eLearning as well as or better than they do through traditional teaching.
If you are interested in taking precautions to minimise the spread of COVID-19 either now, or upon return to work, speak to Cormac at: +353 1 2781938 or cormac@elearn.ie
Infection Prevention and Control: Breaking the Chain of Infection
What is infection control and prevention?
Traditionally this means preventing and controlling illnesses that can be spread in the health-care setting. Of course with the current situation regarding the COVID-19 Coronavirus, this now means preventing and controlling illnesses that can be spread in any setting.
The purpose of infection prevention and control is to identify and reduce the risk of infections among patients, employees, medical staff members, contract service workers, volunteers, students, vendor representatives and visitors. Again this has now expanded to include anyone.
This is accomplished through many types of activities, for example, • monitoring infection occurrences in patients and employees • developing and implementing infection control policies and procedures • Infection Control and Prevention education • Safety programs, e.g. hand hygiene, blood borne pathogen prevention • quality improvement activities, e.g. reduction in infection rates, such as catheter related bloodstream infections • monitoring compliance with regulatory requirements • evaluating the environment • provide consultation on Infection Control and Prevention.
Jonathon Corum (April 2020) accessed from ‘The New York Times’ April 2nd 2020
Breaking the chain of Infection
Jonathon Corum (April 2020) accessed from ‘The New York Times’ April 2nd 2020.
The main ways the public can help prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are at the personal level.
This includes:
● Hand washing
● Avoid touching your face (especially your eyes, nose and mouth)
● Social distancing
● Self-quarantining
● Preparing your home for possible COVID-19 exposure
While much has been written concerning hand washing, social distancing, and the now enforced quarantining, not much has been said about preparing our homes regarding Infection Protection and Control. It’s really quite simple. According to Armando Meza, M.D., chief of infectious diseases and associate academic dean of graduate medical education at the TTUHSC El Paso Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, it’s a case of keeping your home clean, ‘especially your kitchen and bathroom. Use of commercially available antimicrobial towels and sprays is appropriate.’
According to epidemiologist Bill Hanage, of Harvard, we’ve got to think like the virus – to ‘see it from the point of view of the pathogens and their evolution. What is going to be most helpful to them? What is going to enable them to leave the most descendants?’
At Myelearnsafety we want to do our bit to combat the COVID-19 Coronavirus through Infection Prevention and Control. To this effect we have launched our Infection Prevention and Control course.
You can also view our COVID-19 explainer video here.
Safeguarding of Vulnerable Adults
Vulnerable adults are those who are restricted in capacity to guard themselves against harm or exploitation. All persons have the right to be safe and to live a life free from abuse and/or neglect, regardless of their circumstances of gender, age etc. The term ‘safeguarding’ in the context of these standards means putting measures in place in services to reduce the risk of harm, to promote people’s human rights, health and wellbeing, and empowering people to protect themselves.
Elder abuse defined
Elder Abuse is defined as a single or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust which causes harm or distress to an older person or violates their human and civil rights. (Protecting our Future, Report of the Working Group on Elder Abuse, September 2002). Sixty five years of age is taken as the point beyond which abuse may be considered to be elder abuse.
Source – Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection
The HSE Health Act Regulations
Health Act Regulations, 2013. This policy applies to older persons or persons with a disability that, as a result of physical or intellectual impairment, may be at risk of abuse. The person may be in receipt of a care service in his or her own home, in the community or be resident in a residential care home, nursing home or other setting. Equally, the person may not be in receipt of a care service.
Some of the principles underpinning the policy include:
- Respect for human rights
- A person centred approached to care and services
- Promotion of advocacy
- Respect for confidentially
- Empowerment of individuals
- A collaborative approach
Source – HSE
Types of abuse
- Physical abuse
- Sexual abuse
- Psychological abuse
- Financial abuse
- Institutional abuse
- Neglect
- Discriminatory abuse
World Elder Abuse Day
On the 15th of this month (June 2019) it was World Elder Abuse Day. This day was first introduced back in 2006 and it was to bring attention to the issue of elder abuse in our global society and as a public health and humans rights concern.
World Elder Abuse Awareness Day provides an opportunity for all of us to focus our attention on elder abuse. It challenges each one of us to redouble efforts to promote respect and dignity for all older people and to help eradicate abuse of older people. Everybody has a role to play and the challenges posed by elder abuse cannot be met solely by any one individual, organisation, or state body, it is all our responsibilities.
Safeguarding of Vulnerable Adults Course
We at MyElearnSafety want to be part of the solution to this type of abuse so we are created a Safeguarding of Vulnerable Adults Course . This course will enable service users to understand fully what safeguarding a vulnerable adult entails: What is a vulnerable adult? What constitutes abuse? How to respond to signs of abuse; How to respond to concerns of an elderly person who may have suffered abused.
Our ‘Safeguarding of Vulnerable Adults’ course is approved by the Irish Association of Healthcare Assistants (IAHA).