Failure to Ensure Dietary Staff Held Required Food Handling Certifications
Penalty
Summary
The deficiency involves the facility’s failure to ensure that dietary staff possessed required food handling and sanitation certifications as outlined in their job descriptions. During an initial kitchen tour, only two dietary staff members, a cook and a cook/dietary aide, were present, and the dietary manager was absent. The dietary manager later stated that there had been a call-off and that she normally schedules three aides and one cook per shift, including herself. When surveyors requested food handling certificates for all dietary staff, the dietary manager produced a list of nine dietary staff, including herself, along with her active food manager license and three food handling certificates for three dietary aides. The cook and the cook/dietary aide who were the only staff in the kitchen when the survey team first entered did not have food handling certificates, and at that time only three of nine dietary staff had current food handling certificates. Further review of the certificates initially presented showed that two dietary staff had certificates without expiration dates, and the dietary manager later produced new certificates for those two staff dated during the survey. Surveyors identified that approximately four staff members still had no certificates, including the two staff who had been working in the kitchen upon entrance. The dietary manager stated she did not know why the dietary staff did not have food handling certificates. The job descriptions for the cook and dietary aides state that their primary purpose includes ensuring safe food handling procedures and maintaining all federal, state, and local nutritional/dietary regulations, and under qualifications and essential requirements, the cook position requires possession of a sanitation certificate. This failure had the potential to affect all 153 residents who receive food by mouth from the kitchen.
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