COMMERCIAL LAUNDRY RISKY BUSINESS


Amanda Dufrane, Care Segment Manager at Electrolux Professional discusses the findings of a new report specifically focused on laundry processes in the care sector, and shines the spotlight on how lapses in best practice could put residents at risk.


To help raise awareness of the current strains on the care sector, Electrolux Professional has conducted a survey on the collective attitudes of care workers from both the public and private sectors towards how cleanliness and hygiene are managed through their laundry processes.


Startlingly, one of the survey’s key findings revealed that over a quarter of care home staff in the UK do not feel their laundry is managed in a way which completely avoids contamination, highlighting a potentially worrying lack of awareness around key best practice techniques.


“There is a high probability


that residents within a care environment are being put at risk of serious illness


and this is a risk that needs to be eliminated before a severe outbreak occurs.”


With average life expectancy continuing to rise each year, resident numbers in the UK care sector are increasing at an unprecedented rate. As the demands placed on those operating and managing care homes grow in tandem, inconsistencies across key processes are starting to emerge.


The industry has a growing responsibility to ensure that all staff in the country’s 19,000 care homes are fully aware of how to guarantee their residents are protected from the health risks which can result from an improperly managed laundry.


64 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning December 2015


As well as revealing that many laundry departments are not managed in a way which completely avoids contamination, the survey also found that nearly a third believe staff at their care facility do not fully understand the difference between visual and hygienic cleanliness, while 5% of the survey’s respondents even recalled having knowingly experienced an instance where an infection outbreak could be traceable to laundry procedures.


However, arguably as worrying are the inconsistencies between care home operators’ attitudes towards laundry processes compared with their managers’. The survey highlighted that a third of operators do not feel their laundry system is managed in a way which completely avoids contamination, compared to just 25% of managers. Meanwhile, just 14% of managers see contamination through linen as their prime concern when managing cleanliness, compared to 24% of those operating the equipment.


The findings paint a clear picture that there are inconsistent attitudes across the care sector when it comes to running an effective and hygienic on-premises laundry, and as such, Electrolux has produced Infection Prevention: its own guide to Laundry Cycle Management – an eight-


step process which ensures every element of the laundry cycle journey is monitored in order to significantly reduce the risk of contamination.


This validation-based system offers guidance on some of the processes which can often be forgotten by operators, such as the proper packaging and transportation of dirty laundry via dedicated routes, and the correct storing of clean linen to protect it from damage by micro-organisms. Crucially, the concept can be applied to traditional laundry operations as well as those with a barrier system in place.


Ultimately, the fact that nearly half of operators admit they don’t think staff at their facility understand the difference between visual and hygienic cleanliness is a huge concern that the industry needs to address. There is a high probability that residents within a care environment are being put at risk of serious illness and this is a risk that needs to be eliminated before a severe outbreak occurs.


The latest thinking around laundry concepts certainly goes some way to offering complete hygiene assurance, whilst playing a part in helping care homes to achieve positive resident wellbeing ratings. However this can only be achieved if staff have a full understanding of how to use these systems to their full capabilities. In this respect, it is vital that care home managers invest in the appropriate levels of training to ensure all staff are able to keep hygiene firmly at the front of their minds.


To download a copy of Electrolux Professional’s report, Infection Prevention: A report on the important role of laundry cycle management in UK Care homes, click here.


www.electrolux.co.uk


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