Hygiene Officer

The hygiene officer is the named person who ensures infection prevention compliance and keeps the written hygiene plan up to date. Which provision requires that plan depends on the facility. § 36 Abs. 1 IfSG (Infection Protection Act) covers the community facilities listed in § 33 IfSG, homeless shelters, asylum accommodation, other mass accommodation and correctional facilities. For hospitals, outpatient surgery facilities, prevention or rehabilitation facilities, dialysis units, day clinics, maternity units and rescue services, the same duty sits in § 23 Abs. 5 IfSG. Under § 23 Abs. 3 Satz 2 IfSG, compliance is presumed where the published KRINKO recommendations issued at the Robert Koch Institute have been observed, so a departure from them has to be justified and recorded.

The title does not describe one single function. In a hospital it splits across several appointments with different qualification routes, set by the state Medical Hygiene Ordinances (MedHygV) that § 23 Abs. 8 IfSG obliges every state to issue. In nursing, daycare, catering and food production it usually means one named person carrying the whole hygiene file. Food businesses additionally fall under Regulation (EC) 852/2004 and the national food hygiene ordinance (LMHV). Operators of drinking water installations follow the Drinking Water Ordinance (TrinkwV), including its notification duties in § 11 TrinkwV and Legionella testing under § 31 TrinkwV.

Day to day, the officer revises the hygiene plan, runs walk-throughs and tracks the findings, organises training, supervises device reprocessing, and notifies communicable diseases and outbreaks to the public health office. The § 43 Abs. 1 IfSG instruction is a precondition for handling the foods listed in § 42 Abs. 2 IfSG. It is delivered before work starts by the public health office or by a physician it has authorised. The employer repeats it every two years under § 43 Abs. 4 Satz 1 IfSG and records attendance.

Inspections keep finding the same gaps: a hygiene plan that no longer matches how the site works, instruction records without a signature or a date, walk-through reports whose findings never became a tracked action, and an appointment letter naming neither the scope of duties nor a deputy. Failing to set the plan required by § 23 Abs. 5 Satz 1 IfSG, or omitting the instruction under § 43 Abs. 4 Satz 1 IfSG, is an administrative offence carrying a fine up to 25,000 EUR under § 73 Abs. 2 IfSG.