STERILE SERVICES
Cleaning up the NHS W
hilst there are many priorities which are subject
to change in the health service, the cleanliness of surgical instruments is certainly not one of them. This is why millions are spent every year ensuring that the cleanliness of surgical instruments and other equipment is of the highest standards.
The decontamination services department at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is made up of the sterile services department and the endoscope decontamination unit.
The sterile services department carries out decontamination of surgical instruments and the endoscope decontamination unit processes flexible endoscopes.
The SSD was opened in 1993 and was then followed by the opening of the EDU two years ago and was one of the first in the country.
“Every day we receive surgical and endoscopic equipment, which is then put through the full decontamination process – this cleans, disinfects and sterilises the equipment – and then it is packaged back up and sent back to our customers. It is a circle which is continually rotating,” says Olga Sleigh, the trust’s head of decontamination services.
The SSD serves twenty operating theatres in their own hospital and provides services to external customers including private clinics and a local NHS hospital.
Olga Sleigh
“We are quite a busy department made up of thirty members of staff across the two departments who are all qualified technicians.
“Our department complies with the requirements of the Medical Device Directive and we have implemented a quality management system for the decontamination of medical devices, which is complaint with international standard ISO 13485/2003 and the ISO 9001/2008 since 2003 for SSD and for the EDU, which was implemented in 2008.”
The DSD is certainly at the heart of healthcare services in its area and the team pride themselves on the quality of service they give.
“We work very closely with our customers to make sure that all targets are met and that there are no cancellations due to a lack
I would like to
see improvements in terms of when we receive instruments on loan from other companies
Nov/Dec 10
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation trust operates one of the largest and most efficient decontamination departments in the capital
of instruments. We also offer our customers a wide range of services – for example, we can arrange for instruments to be repaired or manage the contracts for servicing on complex power tools and other expensive equipment.
“We can also help in the procurement of instruments to ensure that all standards are met. There are a lot of companies selling instruments so we need to make sure that only the good quality ones are being used in our sets.”
This high level of service was recently recognised when the department had its audit and passed with flying colours.
A major part of the healthcare agenda has recently centred around the prevention of healthcare associated infections, an area in which the DSD at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation trust is involved.
“Our input around this issue is quite high because every patient who is coming into the hospital for surgery is connected to us through the quality of the instruments being used on them and the standards which are being applied. This is why I feel that our department is like the heart of the hospital because if the instruments aren’t ready then the surgery can’t happen.
“This is why we pay a lot of attention to what we are doing and why we invest so heavily in our staff who feel valued and are extremely well trained. We also have no problem with recruitment because people only
seem to leave very occasionally and we must be one of the only departments in the hospital – or even the country – which is not using agency staff.
“Our staff also receive qualifications and all of this training means that they have an understanding of why it is so important for us to pay attention to the quality of our work and our environment. This also means that our staff feel valued and they pay us back by delivering work to a very high standard.
“We are a very close team and we motivate our staff through being as helpful as possible and empowering them, through involving them as much as possible in the decision making process. This literally involves saying ‘this is your department – how would you like to change it? How can we improve it?’
“And every year the staff actively work to change and improve the unit. It is not just a case of me being the manager and dictating the work – my staff come to me and tell me how they want to improve things. We are very lucky to have such a great team.”
So where are the next
improvements due to be made? “I would like to see
improvements in terms of when we receive instruments on loan from other companies – I want to see this process managed more effectively because at the moment we receive lots of boxes of instruments at one time which gives us a very small window in which to decontaminate them.
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