Health department hygiene instructions: when, for whom and at what frequency it must be verifiable

The instruction in accordance with Section 43 of the Infection Protection Act (IfSG) has been a prerequisite since 2001 for employees to be able to handle perishable food. It is carried out by the health authority or by a designated person and consists of the initial instruction and an annual follow-up instruction by the employer. Anyone who works in the kitchen, counter or catering without a valid certificate is violating Section 73 IfSG, which provides for fines of up to 25,000 euros.

This article explains who needs instruction, what content is mandatory, what the documentation looks like and how the health department procedure differs from the internal follow-up instruction. We will then show how hygiene instructions, evidence and hygiene officer tasks can be managed in a comprehensible manner in a workspace so that every inspector has access to the current file situation.

Section 43 of the Infection Protection Act regulates the instructions for people who handle food within the meaning of Section 42 (2) IfSG. These include, among other things, meat, fish, milk and milk products, egg products, infant and toddler food, ice cream and baked goods with underbaked or scalded fillings. The addressee is not only kitchen staff, but also every person who prepares, handles or puts food on the market and comes into contact with it, including commercial and voluntary work.

The initial instruction must take place before the first start of the activity and must not be older than three months at the start of the activity (Section 43 Paragraph 1 Sentence 2 IfSG). It is carried out by the health department or a doctor appointed by the department and documented in a certificate that the person being instructed and the employer must keep. In terms of content, bans on activities in the case of certain diseases (typhus, cholera, shigellosis, salmonellosis, enterohemorrhagic E. coli, hepatitis A or E, infected wounds, skin diseases with a risk of pathogen transmission) as well as notification obligations to the employer are mandatory. Anyone who undertakes activities at the food interface without this certificate is acting unlawfully in accordance with Section 73 Paragraph 1a No. 22 IfSG. A more detailed description of the role obligations can be found on the website of the Hygiene Officer.

The initial instruction takes place at the local health authority, usually at the place of residence of the person to be instructed. Appointments are usually made online or by telephone. Depending on the authority, the instruction lasts between 20 and 60 minutes and ends with the delivery of a written certificate. Depending on the federal state and municipal fee regulations, the fees range from 20 to 30 euros. There is no uniform nationwide rate.

Many health authorities, including the authorities in Bavaria, Berlin and Hamburg, now also offer the instructions online. The prerequisite is video identification, continuous image and sound transmission and a final comprehension test. The online version is only legally equivalent if the health authority responsible for it expressly offers it. Private-sector “online instruction” without reference to the health authority does not replace Section 43 IfSG. The certificate contains name, date of birth, date of instruction, stamp and signature; a copy remains in the personnel file, the original with the person being instructed. Employees from other EU countries require recognition of equivalent instructions or initial instruction in Germany, as Section 43 IfSG does not provide for automatic recognition.

According to Section 43 Paragraph 4 IfSG, the employer must instruct employees who handle the foodstuffs mentioned in Section 42 Paragraph 2 IfSG after starting their work and every two years thereafter. However, the official interpretation and the recommendations of the Robert Koch Institute assume an annual follow-up instruction, since Section 43 Paragraph 4 Sentence 1 IfSG requires “regular” repetition and the wording “at least annually” is anchored in many state regulations. In practice, the annual cycle has become established and is also the benchmark in food and IfSG audits.

The follow-up instructions are mandatory for the employer and can be carried out by the hygiene officer, a qualified person or external service providers. In terms of content, it follows on from the initial instruction and supplements current hygiene requirements, procedures for reporting illness and company-specific processes. Participation must be documented in writing or electronically, stored for at least two years and presented to the responsible authority upon request. Anyone who is operational as a representative benefits from ready-made audit templates with a list of signatures, learning content and a re-instruction plan; The documentation is therefore § 43-proof and verifiable.

The obligation to provide instructions is linked to the activity, not to the employment relationship. Permanent employees as well as temporary workers, students on student contracts, interns, trainees, part-time employees and volunteers are covered as soon as they come into contact with perishable food regularly or in shift work. Recruiters and temporary employment agencies are also obliged to provide proof of valid instructions before employment. The same applies to cleaning staff who work in production areas.

For occasional voluntary work, such as at a club party, the Federal Ministry of Health has made it clear that instruction is required if the activity does not fall under one-off assistance in the immediate family circle. Schools, daycare centres and social institutions with their own kitchens are subject to Section 43 IfSG. Nursing homes and hospitals have a special status, in which the IfSG regulations on activity bans in accordance with Section 23 IfSG and the in-house hygiene regulations also apply. If you distribute staff with similar tasks across multiple locations in multi-company structures, you should keep the certificate digitally in your personnel file so that each location can see the status immediately. Others run compliance like a filing cabinet. We run it like software.

The employer must keep the certificate of the initial instruction as well as the documentation of the subsequent instruction available in the workplace (Section 43 Paragraph 5 IfSG). It must be presented to the responsible authority and its representatives upon request. The retention period is at least two years. In practice, it is recommended to keep the documents for the duration of the employment and for three years beyond in order to securely cover follow-up examinations, damage events and personnel changes.

Three elements are relevant to the audit: initial instruction certificate from the health authority, proof of the annual follow-up instruction with date, content and signature as well as proof that a person has informed the employer if illness is suspected. The latter concerns the reporting chain protocol: Short, clear procedural instructions with a telephone list and replacement arrangements are often the point at which audits fail, not the instruction itself. CIVAC provides these elements as audit templates, including resubmission 11 months after the last follow-up instruction. In this way, the inventory remains verifiable, the auditor calls, the proof is ready. The certificate itself is always kept in the original by the person being instructed; the company keeps a copy.

§ 43 IfSG is only part of the canon of hygiene obligations. At the same time, the EU Regulation (EC) No. 852/2004 on food hygiene applies, which, according to Chapter XII of Annex II, requires food companies to train staff in hygiene issues in accordance with their activities. The national food hygiene regulation (LMHV) repeats this requirement in Section 4 LMHV and also requires initial training and regular repetition of training.

This creates a two-stage picture: Section 43 IfSG addresses communicable diseases, activity bans and notification obligations. Section 4 LMHV and Art. 5 Regulation (EC) 852/2004 address personnel training in HACCP principles, cleaning, temperature control, allergen management and traceability. Both strands are intertwined, but are legally separate. A good training concept brings them together in a single annual instruction and training measure so that both obligations are fulfilled in one documentation step. The hygiene officer is often the role that moderates this interface. In CIVAC, the task is stored as a separate workflow, with templates for the training plan, participant list, learning objective control and follow-up. This means that the instructions are verified not twice, but once, both audit-proof and § 43-proof.

Violations of Section 43 IfSG are administrative offenses according to Section 73 Paragraph 1a No. 22 IfSG and can be punished with fines of up to 25,000 euros in each individual case. They are measured according to the number of employees affected, the duration of the violation and the severity of the risk. In connection with a lack of HACCP documentation, expired instructions and a poor reporting chain, there are regular strings of fines and short-term operating bans in individual areas. In nursing homes and canteens with particularly vulnerable groups of people, the authority will often also involve the home supervision at the same time.

Typical audit findings are: no initial certificate can be found in the personnel file, follow-up instruction was not carried out or is older than 12 months, lists of participants without a signature or without information about the contents, the obligation to report suspected illness is not regulated, external cleaning staff work in the production area without instruction, volunteers at parties without instruction. Anyone who, as an auditor or hygiene officer, maintains an overview of the inventory per location, per employee, per key date significantly reduces the risk of fines and the duration of inquiries from the authorities. The criminal prosecution (Section 74 IfSG) only takes effect if the behaviour is repeated persistently; In practice, fines coupled with conditions are the usual means.

Day 1 to 5: Taking stock. List all food-related employees, including temporary staff, interns, external cleaners and volunteers. Collect the date of the first instruction and the date of the last follow-up instruction for each person. Mark cases without a certificate or with follow-up instructions that are older than 12 months.

Days 6 to 14: Catching up. Make appointments with the local health department or use a recognised online procedure. Bundle operational follow-up instructions in a collective training course, combine them with the LMHV training, and document them on a uniform list of participants with a catalogue of topics, date, signature. Day 15 to 21: Establish procedures. Write down in writing who needs to be informed if illness is suspected, who will act as a substitute and how the exclusion from activity will be implemented. Day 22 to 30: Resubmission. Set a reminder 11 months later for each follow-up instruction. Store the certificates electronically in the personnel file and only grant access to clearly defined roles. CIVAC maps this 30-day plan in the workspace, from inventory comparison to training documentation to automatic resubmission. If you would like to hand over the role completely externally, you can have the hygiene officer appointed by CIVAC, with an appointment certificate, reporting line and 2 working days SLA until the first meeting.

CIVAC is a compliance platform and officer-as-a-service. Licence the workspace for your internal representatives and you will keep initial and follow-up instructions, follow-up instructions, reporting channels and fine risks in an audit inventory. Or have our representatives order, with an appointment certificate, signed, filed and verifiable. The EU data residency, the ISO 27001:2022 basis and the 490 audit templates underlie every solution, whether you instruct yourself or outsource the task completely.

When the next inspection is due and the health authority asks for proof of instruction, the question is not whether the certificate is somewhere, but whether every person is assigned to each deadline. With the CIVAC workspace, the inventory shows in seconds which instruction is valid, which is due in 30 days and where a catch-up is due. Write to info@civac.de or use the contact form on civac.de. We check your situation, suggest the necessary templates and set up the workspace, or provide the hygiene officer ready to order. Turn reading into an assignment.