Dear Inesa,
What suggestion would you come up with, if you had to teach your employees and there were no hand-free water taps?
I presume we are talking about control measures to avoid hand touching / cross-contaminating at the handwashing step.?
I would look for validation of (i) necessity (eg during closing the water tap / possible significances of various stages / times of day / efficiency of washroom cleaning attendant) in relation to people having contaminated hands (clothing?) on exiting the handwashing area (particularly if having used the toilet)? (ii) options in event of positive results from (i).
And I suppose it is logical to location-divide the evaluation data, eg perhaps 4-ways - food, unwrapped, retail/food production factory/non-food/ health-care/depending on the data (if any).
Do we have any data for (i) yet ?? And yes, I am passing the buck.
Sadly, the availability of recycling paper is by no means global.
Rgds / Charles.C
Added- As a starter, here are a few, data unvalidated, thoughts –
1. The strictest available options are probably as recommended in healthcare situations. (“intuitive” risk basis even if not specically validated). Additionally, there seems to be a fairly uniform set of guidelines between different locations. There are also many more publications on healthcare situations compared to food handling establisments (comment UK6 attachment, pg11).
2. Food handler specific references are variable compared to the scope of the healthcare lists ranging from close copies to reduced formats. Specific reasons for omissions are usually not given.
The above has some similarities with the results in the parallel thread on (General) Personal Hygiene.
As examples of (1,2) above for healthcare and food handling situations with respect to using a” towel to turn off [t3o] the water tap” –
t3o included - WHO (healthcare workers [HCW] oriented), CDC (HCW, see R2), SFBB/Catering,(FH pg28)
t3o not included – UK4 attachment (Food handling [FH]), CDC (“Basic” handwashing procedure see R1)
t3o optional – US Food Code (2005)(FH, see 2-301.12 [C])(inc.door handle also)
taps to be not hand operated – Tesco FMS,(FH, 8.15), McFoodies (FH pg3, see R3)(inc.soap dispenser also!), Hi-tm (FH, sec.12, see R4)
R1 -
http://www.cdc.gov/h...tml#handwashingR2 -
http://www.cdc.gov/m...F/rr/rr5116.pdfR3 -
http://www.hazardhub...iene_100410.pdfR4 -
http://www.hi-tm.com...dwash-FL99.html(also mentions that tap handles hv not been shown to be a critical issue, ie probably no data)
Haven’t seen one source of data yet to enable a comment.
Almost nobody seems to mention cleaning items like water taps. (SFBB one exception). This would surely minimise any t3o related risk.
My conclusion so far – inconclusive.