Florida’s Long-Term Care Food Safety Training Requirements

There are nearly 700 nursing homes and over 3,000 assisted living facilities in Florida.

People living in long-term care facilities are highly susceptible to foodborne illnesses since they have a less robust immune system to fend off pathogens due to old age, because of a chronic illness that weakens their immune system, or both.

For this reason, Florida has specific food safety training requirements for cooks, chef, and food handlers who serve those in nursing homes and assisted living.

This article discusses everything you need to know about Florida’s long-term care food safety training requirements.

Key requirements for food safety training

Florida has three regulatory agencies that ensure safe food handling and serving practices — the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DACS), the Department of Business and Professional Regulations (DBPR), and the Department of Health (DOH).

Of these, the DOH is responsible for regulating long-term care facilities, among other establishments that prepare or serve food like schools.

The DOH requires that the certified food protection manger (CFPM) or person in charge (PIC) at nursing homes and assisted living facilities provide annual food safety training to their employees.

This training must be provided by March 31 of each year. Employees hired after the annual training has been provided must receive training within 30 days of hire (1).

The training can be conducted in person by the CFPM or PIC or completed online from an ANAB-accredited food handler training provider.

Regardless of the training type, the CFPM or PIC must keep record of all employees who completed the training as well as the training curriculum for three years.

Facilities that fail to complete the required training must schedule training and testing with the DOH and pay any applicable fees.

Meet Florida’s food safety training requirement with online training

Online food handler training is an easy, convenient, and inexpensive way to ensure that your employees receive the necessary annual food safety training.

FoodSafePal’s Food Handler training can be completed online in under two hours from any device, including mobile.

The training covers important food safety topics, including:

• good personal hygiene practices
• safe food thawing, cooking, cooling, and holding methods
• proper cleaning and sanitizing procedures
• time-temperature controls for food safety
• proper insect and pest control

These are all the topics that Florida recommends (1).

After completing the course modules, employees must answer at least 28 out of 40 multiple-choice questions correctly to earn their certificate of completion and food handlers card.

The training is valid for three years, but Florida requires that the training be completed annually since long-term care residents are highly susceptible to foodborne illnesses.

Employees can share, email, or print their certificate for the manager to keep on file per Florida’s requirements for record retention.

The bottom line

Residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities are highly susecptible to foodborne illnesses.

As such, the Florida Department of Health requires annual training for food workers that serve these facilities.

This training can completed either in person or through an ANAB-accredited online food handler training course, such as the one offered by FoodSafePal.