Colour-coding chart

When you need this form

Aged care and hospital cleaning runs on a colour system that every casual, agency worker and new starter must know on day one. The chart sets the approved colours by area, ties them to the cleaning schedule and infection-prevention controls, and captures staff acknowledgement that they have read it. Wards, isolation rooms, kitchens, bathrooms and resident spaces each get their own coding.

Accreditation assessors and infection-control leads ask two things: what is the approved system, and can you show the staff know it. A laminated poster answers the first. A live acknowledgement record, signed per worker with a date, answers the second. That second answer is the one that usually goes missing during an environmental cleaning audit.

What good looks like

• Every colour mapped to a named area, with no unassigned zones.
• Equipment covered as well as cloths: mops, buckets, gloves, caddies.
• Isolation and outbreak variations stated, not left to the shift lead.
• Cleaning frequency shown beside each area, so coding and schedule match.
• Each worker's acknowledgement signed and dated, including agency and casual staff.