How long must a food handler stay off work after sickness or diarrhoea?

48 hours after symptoms have completely stopped, without medication. The clock starts from the last symptom, not from when you first felt ill, because people remain infectious after they feel better. Diagnosed foodborne illness may require longer exclusion and clearance from a health professional.

What are the personal hygiene rules for food handlers?

Report illness and observe the 48-hour rule, wash hands thoroughly and often, wear clean protective clothing put on at work, tie back and cover hair, remove jewellery, keep nails short and unvarnished, cover cuts with blue detectable plasters, and do not eat, smoke or vape in food areas.

Is hand sanitiser enough for food handlers?

No. Sanitiser is an extra step on visibly clean hands, not a replacement for washing. It does not remove soil and is ineffective against some pathogens including norovirus. Gloves are also not a substitute for handwashing.

Why do food handlers use blue plasters?

Blue is used because no common food is that colour, so a detached plaster is easy to spot. They are also waterproof and metal-detectable, allowing detection in food manufacturing.

Can food handlers wear jewellery?

Generally no. A plain wedding band is commonly permitted, but stones, watches and bracelets are not, because they trap bacteria and food residue including allergens and can fall into food.

Personal Hygiene Rules for Food Handlers (UK)

The rule that matters most is the one people break: if you have had vomiting or diarrhoea, you must stay away from food for 48 hours after the symptoms stop. Not 48 hours from when you felt ill — 48 hours from the last symptom. You remain infectious after you feel better.

Everything else — handwashing, clean clothing, hair, jewellery, covering cuts — matters too. But no amount of protective clothing compensates for an infectious food handler on shift.

What the law requires

Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, Annex II, Chapter VIII sets two duties:

“Every person working in a food-handling area shall maintain a high degree of personal cleanliness and shall wear suitable, clean and, where necessary, protective clothing.”

And, critically:

“No person suffering from, or being a carrier of a disease likely to be transmitted through food… shall be permitted to handle food or enter any food-handling area in any capacity if there is any likelihood of direct or indirect contamination.”

Note the phrase “or being a carrier”. Someone who feels perfectly well can still be shedding pathogens. That is precisely why the 48-hour rule extends past the point at which people feel fine.

The regulation also requires that anyone who is affected reports it. That only works if your business makes reporting safe — which is a management problem, not a hygiene one.

Fitness to work

The 48-hour rule

Anyone who has had vomiting or diarrhoea must not handle food until 48 hours after symptoms have completely stopped, without medication. This is the single most important personal hygiene rule in food safety, and the one most often quietly ignored during a busy week.

Businesses undermine it in predictable ways: no sick pay, thin rotas, a culture where calling in ill is treated as letting the team down. If your staff cannot afford to report illness, your controls exist on paper only.

Report these too

Infected wounds, skin infections, boils or septic cuts
Discharge from the eyes, ears, nose or mouth
Recent contact with someone who had vomiting or diarrhoea
Diarrhoea or sickness following foreign travel
A diagnosed foodborne illness — this may require exclusion beyond 48 hours and clearance from a health professional

Returning staff and new starters

Ask about fitness to work at induction and after any absence involving sickness. Record it. This is a documented control an inspector can see, feeding your food hygiene rating‘s confidence-in-management score.

Handwashing

Done properly it is the most effective single control in a food business. Done as a two-second rinse it is theatre.

Technique

Wet hands with warm running water
Apply soap and lather — palms, backs, between fingers, thumbs, fingertips, nails and wrists
Continue for around 20 seconds
Rinse thoroughly
Dry completely — wet hands transfer bacteria far more readily than dry ones

When

Before starting work and before handling ready-to-eat food
After handling raw meat, poultry, fish, eggs or unwashed vegetables
After using the toilet
After breaks, eating, smoking or vaping
After touching your face, hair, or a phone
After handling waste, cleaning chemicals, or packaging
Between tasks, and between raw and ready-to-eat work

Two things worth stating plainly

Hand sanitiser is not a substitute for washing. It works on visibly clean hands as an extra step. It does not remove soil, and it is ineffective against some pathogens including norovirus.
Gloves are not a substitute either. Gloves get contaminated exactly as hands do — the difference is that people forget they are wearing them. Wash hands before putting them on, and change them between tasks.

Handwash basins must be used for handwashing only, and be supplied with hot and cold water, soap and a hygienic way to dry hands. A basin used for rinsing equipment is a finding.

Protective clothing

Clean and purpose-made — not the clothes you travelled in. Change if visibly soiled.
Put on at work, not at home, and removed before leaving the premises. Whites worn on the bus arrive carrying whatever the bus had.
Never worn into toilets.
Hair tied back and covered. Beard snoods where appropriate.
Aprons changed between raw and ready-to-eat tasks.

Jewellery, nails and personal items

These are physical and bacterial contamination risks, and they carry allergen risk too — a ring traps residue that hand-washing does not reliably remove.

Jewellery: remove. A plain wedding band is commonly permitted; stones, watches and bracelets are not.
Nails: short, clean, unvarnished. No false nails or gel extensions — they harbour bacteria and can detach into food.
Piercings: remove or cover where they present a risk.
Strong perfume or aftershave can taint food, particularly dairy and bakery products.
Phones carry more bacteria than most surfaces in the kitchen. Keep them out of food areas, and wash hands after use.

Cuts, wounds and plasters

Cover every cut or graze with a blue, waterproof, detectable plaster — blue because no food is that colour, so it is visible if it falls in, and metal-detectable so it can be found in manufacturing.

Wear a glove over a covered hand wound. Infected wounds mean no food handling at all until cleared.

Behaviour in food areas

No smoking or vaping
No eating, and no drinking except from a covered container in a designated area
Never taste with a used utensil, or with fingers
Cough and sneeze away from food, into a tissue, then wash hands
Never touch your face, hair or nose then continue working
Visitors, contractors and delivery drivers follow the same rules — engineers and pest controllers walk into kitchens routinely and are frequently forgotten

Making it stick

Personal hygiene rules fail for cultural reasons more than ignorance. What works:

Train everyone and record it. Documented training is evidence, and the cheapest thing on this list.
Make reporting illness safe. If staff are punished for calling in sick, the 48-hour rule will be broken.
Supply what the rules require — hot water, soap, hand-drying, spare whites, blue plasters. Rules without supplies are just blame in advance.
Managers go first. Staff copy what supervisors do, not what the poster says.
Write it into induction, so day one sets the standard.

Train your food handlers

Level 1 — Food Safety and Hygiene — front of house and low-risk roles
Level 2 — Catering · Retail · Manufacturing
Food Safety and Hygiene in Care — where residents are more vulnerable to infection

£9 per course. CPD accredited, 100 % online, verifiable e-certificate on completion. Pay for 2, get 3 — any 3 courses for £18.

Please note: these are CPD-accredited awareness courses and general information, not legal advice or medical advice. They are not Ofqual-regulated qualifications. Exclusion periods for diagnosed infections can be longer than 48 hours and may require clearance from a health professional — follow your local health protection team’s advice and your employer’s specific requirements.

Personal Hygiene Rules for Food Handlers