The Meal Assistance Safe Operating Procedure (SOP) is a guide for support workers who help clients to eat, covering both client safety and the worker's own safety during meal-related tasks.
It sets out the hazards (working with people, hot food, blades, cleaning chemicals and manual handling), what the support worker should be aware of, the precautions and operator training needed, and step-by-step instructions for before, during and after the meal.
A post procedure step encourages re-evaluating the task and reporting any issues, and a training and induction register records each worker's training and competency.