Hygiene specialist
Health and science
Level 4 -
Provide specialist hygiene services in areas such as closed plants, sterile environments, food production and laboratories.
Reference: OCC0873
Status:
SOC 2020 sub unit groups:
- 1259/01 Cleaning and hygiene services managers and proprietors
Technical Education Products
Employers involved in creating the standard:
National Skills Academy for Food and Drink, Bakkavor, Aesica Pharamceuticals, Society of Dairy Technology, University of Lincoln, Branston, Melton Foods, Avara Foods, Holchem Ltd, Midshire Foods, Warburtons, Premier Foods, Kellogg Co, Samworth Brothers
Summary
This occupation is found in environments that require specific attention to hygiene requirements. This includes a range of both public and private sector environments including food and drink manufacturing environments, pharmaceutical, chemical and agricultural industries.
The broad purpose of the occupation is to provide specialist hygiene services in areas such as closed plants, sterile environments, food production and laboratories. Hygiene Specialists are subject matter experts who have accountability for setting, maintaining and implementing hygiene management systems. They provide leadership and support for hygiene activities, including managing health and safety hazards and having an appreciation of environmental risks. They will have a good understanding of microbiology, will analyse and interpret microbiological results and identify appropriate controls. The Hygiene Specialist will determine the audit requirements of the hygiene management system and provide advice and support to other colleagues to ensure it is maintained.
In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with heads of functions internally, enforcement bodies, external contractors and suppliers, auditors and customers at all levels within the organisation.
An employee in this occupation will be responsible for co-ordinating the development and implementation of the hygiene management system through inter-departmental working. Hygiene Specialists work with a high degree of autonomy across departments to ensure hygiene standards are achieved to meet organisational, industry and legislative requirements and will contribute to the hygienic design of buildings and equipment. They will have a good understanding of the science of hygiene processes and chemicals and will work with external providers to identify and select the best chemicals and hygiene equipment for use within the business. They will have a good understanding of the requirements of COSHH and will deal with local environmental permits to ensure all legislative requirements are closely followed. They will determine the pre-planned hygiene schedule of the business and will regularly evaluate the audit schedule to ensure it meets industry and legislative requirements. They will set or contribute to hygiene standards across the business and will train, coach and assess others to ensure safe systems of work. In some companies, they may lead a team of dedicated specialists, however in a number of other organisations, they will work within a management structure. Whilst they may not have line management responsibilities they will have technical management responsibilities and will be able to influence operational management decisions. Alternatively they may be required to manage large teams of up to 80 people. The level of supervision they receive will be down to the size of the company and the individual structures of those companies. They will understand costs and have budgetary management responsibilities for hygiene resources and ancillary services
Employers involved in creating the standard:
National Skills Academy for Food and Drink, Bakkavor, Aesica Pharamceuticals, Society of Dairy Technology, University of Lincoln, Branston, Melton Foods, Avara Foods, Holchem Ltd, Midshire Foods, Warburtons, Premier Foods, Kellogg Co, Samworth Brothers
Typical job titles include:
Knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs)
Duties
Duty D1
ensure full compliance with current industry related legislation through documented risk assessments, method statements and safe systems of work to ensure that the hygiene activities within the area of responsibility are carried out in such a way as to protect the health, safety and welfare of consumers, customers, clients, employees, visitors and contractors
Duty D2
manage the company hygiene process by identifying the cleaning, disinfection and sterilisation requirements and select the hygiene methodology dependent upon environment, construction of premises, hygienic design of equipment, equipment usage and chemical application equipment, storage of chemicals/disinfectant and the hygiene. Identify the sequence of hygiene stages and formulate, implement and review the organisational hygiene management system. Horizon scanning for new hygienic techniques and technologies
Duty D3
select appropriate hygiene method, chemical/disinfection/sterilisation used dependent on level of contamination and type of organism to be removed and frequency of use. Validate the selected method to ensure that the defined hygiene programme meets industry codes of practice
Duty D4
monitor and verify organisational hygiene standards to ensure validated requirements are consistently met. Implement a company wide monitoring programme through the identification of key performance indicators such as temperature of water, concentration of chemicals, water flow, water pressure and contact time of chemical/disinfection. Verification of existing standards to measure the effectiveness of the validated hygiene process e.g. real time swabbing , traditional microbiological swabbing or visual checking
Duty D5
analyse hygiene data, interpret results, identify trends and implement a programme of corrective actions to prevent reoccurrence of issues such as pathogenic or chemical contamination
Duty D6
work in close partnership with service providers to deliver a fully integrated service support plan, implement Service Level Agreements, follow the agreed supplier approval process, write scopes/specifications
Duty D7
promote sustainable business practices and ensure that hygiene activities are carried out in a manner to minimise environmental impact being aware of waste stream identification and disposal, including licensing requirements, recycling and re-using, environmental permits, effluent treatment and discharge consents
Duty D8
lead on continuous improvement projects that promote hygienic best practice, applying different continuous improvement techniques relevant to the task, such as Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma, 5S, the 8 wastes
Duty D9
manage change within area of responsibility using project management techniques including the introduction of new techniques and changes to staff terms and conditions.
Duty D10
manage financial budgets within area of responsibility for allocated spend of personnel, hygiene equipment and chemicals and ancillary services such as personal protective equipment
Duty D11
manage and investigate incidents/accidents which impact on hygiene processes and/or environment, carry out root cause analysis to investigate causes and reduce/eliminate reoccurrence
Duty D12
recruit, motivate and develop members of cross-functional teams to promote an environment which contributes to the values of the organisation
Duty D13
carry out internal audits and participate in external audits. Communicate all non-conformities to relevant stakeholders and agree corrective actions to be undertaken and assign responsibility
Occupational Progression
This occupational progression map shows technical occupations that have transferable knowledge and skills.
In this map, the focused occupation is highlighted in yellow. The arrows indicate where transferable knowledge and skills exist between two occupations. This map shows some of the strongest progression links between the focused occupation and other occupations.
It is anticipated that individuals would be required to undertake further learning or training to progress to and from occupations. To find out more about an occupation featured in the progression map, including the learning options available, click the occupation.
Progression decisions have been reached by comparing the knowledge and skills statements between occupational standards, combined with individualised learner movement data.
Health and science