Health Status Statement of Staff Members and Hygiene Passport
Employees' health status statement for salmonella infection
Employees' health status check is an interview done by healthcare staff and guides the hygienic procedures of working with food. A laboratory test is included in the check if needed. Workers who handle unpacked perishable foodstuffs must have a health status check. The health status check for salmonella infection is required from all workers, including, for example, interns, who work in the business for at least one month.
The health status check must be done before starting work and when there is reasonable suspicion that the worker carries salmonella.
A health status statement can be received from healthcare, student healthcare or wellbeing services county’s healthcare centre.
The business operator must ensure that the worker’s health condition does not endanger the safety of foodstuffs. Workers who are known or suspected of carrying a disease that transmits through foodstuffs, are not allowed to handle foodstuffs on the premises. The business operator must have a listing of the staff’s health status statements.
The Finnish Food Authority’s website includes a table of handling unpacked perishables in food premises. The table includes the Finnish Food Authority’s policies of when a health status statement is required.
The Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare’s website includes instructions for preventing salmonella infections and further information on health assessments (in Finnish).
Hygiene Passport
Workers in food premises working with unpacked perishable foodstuffs must have a hygiene passport. The hygiene passport can be acquired by successfully completing the Finnish Food Authority’s hygiene passport test. Hygiene passport tests and courses are organized by hygiene passport testers approved by the Finnish Food Authority.
The hygiene passport must be acquired within three months after starting work. All earlier work in the food industry that requires a hygiene passport is retroactively included in the three months.
The Finnish Food Authority’s website offers more information about hygiene passports.