Air and water hygiene support for busy Nursery Managers
Nurseries play a crucial role in society, as they help start children on the right path, to grow into healthy and capable adults, as well as allowing parents to work whilst their children are being cared for. Not only that, but childcare settings can also be a profitable business if well managed.
Children’s Safety and Welfare is the number one concern for any childcare provider, and ensuring the safety and well-being of children is paramount. Effective managers prioritize this above all else.
As a parent you would check that the childcare setting has been registered with Ofsted and/or other organisations such as the Early Years Register, and the Childcare Register.
What isn’t quite so obvious, is checking the safety of the building or childcare setting itself, which is where Swiftclean can help busy childcare providers to ensure their building compliance is taken care of, in terms of legionella control and fire safety.
As a nursery provider, you need to ensure the air and water in your building is compliant with industry guidance or legislation – and if there is cooking taking place on-site, the kitchen and associated ductwork needs to be compliant as well.
Nursery managers are adaptable people, wearing many hats, including but not limited to teacher, nurse, counsellor, chef, and many more. Add to this the ownership and/or management of a building, this would also make them the Legionella responsible person, and the fire safety responsible person.
To ensure that your building complies with regulations, it’s essential to consult experts in the field, such as Swiftclean, who can provide guidance on best practices for air, water, and fire compliance.
Legionella Compliance
For any UK business, including day nurseries, controlling Legionella in the workplace is a legal requirement. The starting point for any control scheme is a Legionella risk assessment, which should be performed by a competent and knowledgeable person, to ensure it is undertaken in the correct manner.
For reference, Swiftclean provides a range of Legionella compliance services including:
- Legionella Risk Assessments
- Regular water system monitoring
- Legionella testing
- Descale and Disinfection of systems or components
- Water Tank Cleaning and Disinfection, and more.
Kitchen Extract Compliance
Good hygiene and controlling the risk of infection in a day nursery kitchen environment is an important task for the responsible person, this includes the maintenance of the components which may not be visible – behind the kitchen canopy filters for example, and the ducting beyond.
All cooking processes will result in fats, oils, grease (FOG) deposits and fibrous particles accumulating in kitchen extract systems, no matter how healthy the cooking is – which of course it usually is in a nursery setting.
These areas, if not professionally maintained, become a fire risk and can be a cause of the ignition and / or spread of fire in kitchens. Therefore, it is of particular importance that grease extract systems are regularly inspected and cleaned as required, to ensure that the obvious fire risk is kept suitably under control.
In addition to this, failure to ensure regular cleaning of kitchen grease extract systems can invalidate buildings insurance cover and highlight a lack of legal compliance with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order.
Swiftclean can help – we professionally clean and maintain systems, in accordance with the BESA specification TR19® Grease. We are the only company recommended by AXA Insurance to their clients for this type of work.
We are also members of the BESCA Ventilation Hygiene Register (VHR) which raises the bar of compliance with TR19® Grease and adds another level of regulation, helping to put Nursery owners’ minds at rest – so they can concentrate on enriching the lives of the young people they care for.
Check out our dedicated nurseries and pre-schools page
