Free template

A visitor health questionnaire for food sites you can print today

The questions every food and packaging site asks at the door, on one A4 sheet, with the hygiene rules acknowledgement and the host’s sign off on the same page. Free. There is no form to fill in to get it: print it, or download the PDF or the Word version and put your own site rules in.

Download the PDF Word version

Prints as one A4 sheet. A starting template, dated September 2026: adapt it to your own site rules and the standard you are certified to.

What it asks

Seven questions, nine rules and one decision

The questions are the ones food and packaging sites commonly ask before somebody goes through the hygiene barrier. None of them is ours; the sheet just puts them on one page with the acknowledgement and the sign off that an auditor looks for next.

Sickness in the last 48 hoursVomiting and diarrhoea are the symptoms most likely to pass into food, and 48 hours clear of the last episode is the interval most sites work to for their own staff. A visitor entering product areas is held to the same line.
Contact with infectionSomebody can carry an illness before they show it. The household question catches the visitor who is fine this morning and whose child was not last night.
Skin, cuts and dischargeInfected skin, a septic cut or a streaming cold sheds bacteria where hands go. The usual answer is a covered wound and a site plaster, or office areas only; the form leaves that call to the host.
Recent travel with illnessThe travel question matters only in combination with a stomach upset, which is why it is asked that way rather than as a list of countries.
Carrier statusA handful of infections can be carried and passed on with no symptoms at all. Most sites ask; a yes is a referral, not a refusal.
Hygiene rules, one by oneProtective clothing, jewellery, glass and hard plastics, food and allergens, hand washing, smoking, reporting and the assembly point. Ticked individually, so the acknowledgement means something, with brackets where your site’s rule goes.
The host’s decisionCleared, office areas only, or referred. This line is what an auditor reads, and for many sites it is the part of the sheet worth keeping.

Privacy notice. [Company name] asks these questions to protect the safety of the food and packaging made on this site and the people who work here. Your answers are health information, which UK data protection law treats as special category data. This sheet is seen by your host and by [role, e.g. the technical manager], kept locked away for [retention period] and then destroyed. Our full privacy notice, including the legal basis we rely on, is available from reception. If you would prefer not to answer, tell your host, who will decide whether you can enter product areas.

1. Your details

Name

Company

Host (member of staff you are here to see)

Areas you will enter ☐ Office or yard only ☐ Production, storage or packing

2. Health declaration Complete before entering production, storage or packing areas

Question	Yes	No
1. Have you had vomiting or diarrhoea in the last 48 hours?	☐	☐
2. Has anyone in your household had vomiting or diarrhoea in the last 48 hours?	☐	☐
3. Do you currently have, or have you had in the last 7 days, a fever or any infectious illness?	☐	☐
4. Do you have any skin infection, boil, septic cut, open wound or rash on your hands, arms, face or neck?	☐	☐
5. Do you have a discharge from your eyes, ears or nose, or a heavy cold or sore throat?	☐	☐
6. Have you returned from travel outside the UK in the last 14 days and had a stomach upset during or since?	☐	☐
7. Have you ever been told you are a carrier of typhoid, paratyphoid, salmonella or hepatitis A?	☐	☐

If you answered Yes to any question, do not enter production, storage or packing areas until your host has spoken to [the technical or quality manager].

3. Site hygiene rules Tick each one

☐ I will stay with my host and only enter the areas I have been cleared for
☐ I will wear the protective clothing provided: [coat, hairnet, beard snood, overshoes or site footwear]
☐ I will remove watches and jewellery [except a plain wedding band] and leave personal items, food, drink and medicines outside product areas
☐ I will not bring glass, hard plastic or [other items your site excludes] into product areas
☐ I have not brought food containing [nuts or other allergens your site controls] on to the site
☐ I will wash my hands on entering product areas and after using the toilet, eating or smoking
☐ I will not smoke or vape except in the designated area
☐ I will report any cut, illness or possible contamination to my host immediately
☐ I know the fire alarm sound and the assembly point at [location]

4. Declaration and sign off

Who	Statement	Name	Signature
Visitor	The answers above are true and complete. I will tell my host if my health changes during my visit, and I will follow the site rules I have ticked.
Host	I have read this sheet before taking the visitor through. Decision: ☐ Cleared for production, storage and packing ☐ Office or yard only ☐ Referred to [role]

A starting template: adapt it to your own site rules and the standard you are certified to. It supports the records a site is expected to keep and is not certification advice. Version September 2026. Template from noonelite.com/visitor-health-questionnaire-template.

How to use it

Six habits that make the sheet a control rather than a filing exercise

The sheet is the easy part. What makes a paper questionnaire worth anything is whether it is read before the door opens and what happens to it afterwards.

Ask before, not after. The sheet is completed at reception and read by the host before anyone goes through the hygiene barrier. A questionnaire filed unread is a record that the question was asked, not that anyone acted on the answer.
Decide what you keep: the answers, or the outcome. The illness answers are health data, which UK GDPR treats as special category, and holding them needs a condition beyond the usual lawful basis. Many sites keep only the host’s decision and the acknowledgement, and destroy the answers. Which you do is a decision for your own data protection advice, and it is worth taking before the first sheet is filled in rather than after.
Put your own rules in the brackets. The bracketed fields are where your site name, your protective clothing, your excluded items, your allergens, your assembly point and your retention period go. The Word version is there so you can change the rules themselves, not just fill the gaps.
One sheet per visit, kept under a cover. A completed sheet is not left on the counter for the next visitor to read. It goes in the folder for that month, and the folder goes in a drawer that locks.
Write the retention period on it, and keep to it. There is no period set in law. Twelve months lines up with an annual audit cycle and is the figure most sites choose; your customer or your standard may ask for longer. When the date comes, the folder is shredded.
Contractors and drivers count. A contractor going into product areas completes it like anyone else. A driver who stays in the yard usually does not, but is still signed in and still on the roll call. Decide which, and write it down so reception does not have to.

Rather not manage paper?

The kiosk puts your declaration on screen at sign in

Your declaration, on an iPad at reception, accepted before the visitor is let through. Anyone who cannot confirm it goes back and speaks to their host, the acceptance is stored against the person with a timestamp, and the record for an audit is a filter and an export rather than a folder. The fire roll call comes with it.

How it works on a food site What it costs

Being straight with you

When the sheet stops being enough

We sell the thing that replaces this sheet, so read the next list knowing that. It is still true, and until one of these happens the sheet is a perfectly good answer.

A customer auditor asks who was on site on a specific date and whether they were screened, and the answer is a folder.
The goods in gate has its own clipboard that nobody collects.
A yes on a sheet was filed without anyone reading it, and you found out afterwards.
The completed sheets, with their health answers, are on a counter where the next visitor can read them.
The alarm goes and the folder is on the reception desk, inside the building.

Sources

Check any of this yourself

ICO, what is special category data?Health data is listed. This is why the sheet separates the host’s decision from the answers.
BRCGS Global Standard Food SafetyThe standard most UK food manufacturers certify to. Its requirements on visitors and medical screening are yours to read in your own copy.
SALSAThe scheme for smaller food and drink producers, with its own expectations of how visitors are controlled.

The small print

What a template does not do

We are not a certification body, an auditor, a food safety consultancy or data protection lawyers, and this is not certification or legal advice. The questions, the rules, the retention period and the lawful basis are yours to decide, ideally with someone qualified and against your own copy of your standard. The sheet supports the records a site is expected to keep; it does not guarantee anything about an audit.

Visitor records and UK GDPR, in full The sign in sheets that go with this If you are certified to BRCGS

Before you ask

The questions people ask about visitor health questionnaires

Who needs a visitor health questionnaire?

Any site where a visitor or contractor may enter an area where food, drink or food contact packaging is made, handled or stored. Food manufacturers, drinks producers, packers and packaging sites all use one. It is generally not asked of somebody who will stay in the office or the yard, which is why the sheet separates the two.

Is a visitor health questionnaire a legal requirement?

Not in those words. Food hygiene law requires that anyone with an illness that could be passed on through food is kept away from handling it, and the certification standards and retailer codes that food and packaging sites work to extend that expectation to visitors and contractors entering product areas. Whether a written declaration is required in so many words depends on your standard and your customers; that an auditor will ask to see it is a safe assumption.

Is visitor health information special category data?

Yes. Answers about illness are data concerning health, which UK GDPR lists as special category, so holding them needs a lawful basis and a further condition, and more care in how they are stored. That is why the sheet records the host’s decision separately from the answers, and why the page suggests deciding, with advice, whether you keep the answers at all.

How long should the completed sheets be kept?

There is no period set in law. Twelve months lines up with an annual audit cycle and is the figure most sites choose; your customer or your standard may ask for longer. Whatever you choose, write it on the sheet and keep to it. The wrong answer is having no number and a cupboard of folders.

Do contractors and delivery drivers complete it?

A contractor who will enter product areas does, like any visitor. A driver who stays in the yard usually does not, but should still be signed in, told the site rules and included in the roll call. Which people complete it is a site decision, and the sheet has a box for office or yard only so reception does not have to make it at the desk.

What does the 48 hours mean?

Forty-eight hours clear of the last episode of vomiting or diarrhoea, not 48 hours since the illness started. It is the interval food businesses commonly apply to their own staff before they return to handling food, and a visitor going into the same areas is held to the same line.

Can I edit the template?

Yes, and you should. The Word version is there so the hygiene rules can be rewritten for your site and your standard, not just the brackets filled in. The PDF and the printed page are the same sheet for sites that only need the gaps filled. Whichever you use, it is a starting template and not certification advice.

Also asked of sites like yours

The other things somebody may ask you to evidence

Each of these is a page about one standard, one duty or one visitor, written the same way as this one: what it actually asks for, what an iPad at reception records towards it, and where it does not help.

When you are ready

If the sheet has stopped being enough

Fifteen minutes on the phone. Which standard you work to, how many doors people come through, and what your last audit said about reception. We will tell you straight whether a kiosk is worth your time yet.

Book a 15 minute call

If the sheet is still doing the job, keep using it. We will say so on the call.

Would rather email? [email protected]