CLEANING & HYGIENE
Put Your Handz Together!
Andrea Jenkyns, founder of the ‘Handz’ hand hygiene campaign, illustrates the devastating impact healthcare associated infections (HCAIs) can have and calls for urgent action to improve hand hygiene compliance across the NHS.
Our NHS is facing many challenges, one of these being an increase in HCAIs. A number of healthcare workers are failing to adhere to adequate hand hygiene practises whilst at work, causing infections to hospital patients to spread. This is a pertinent concern which must be looked into, sooner rather than later.
Research conducted by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in 2011 worryingly showed that 6.4% of hospital patients contracted an infection while in hospital. This study is being replicated later on this year to provide the latest figures on HCAIs in England. Rates have crept up in recent years and suggest that the progress made in the past five years
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may not mirror that in the mid-2000s. Alarmingly, 300,000 patients develop a HCAI in England every year, with 5,000 of those cases proving fatal.
My father was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2011. His initial prognosis was good, and he was expected to live for another ten years in comfort. However, shortly after having fluid drained from his lungs to relieve breathlessness, his wound became infected. Upon readmission to hospital, he was diagnosed with MRSA, and passed away a few months later. The room in which he had surgery was also used to store cleaning equipment, and during his last months in hospital, I became acutely aware of a lack of awareness around hand hygiene
from the medical staff. Since then, I have vowed to do everything I can to raise awareness around the critical importance of hand hygiene in keeping patients safe.
According to the NHS it is estimated that 20-40% of all HCAIs can be avoided by better communication and better application of the existing hand hygiene rules and practices. If there is anything that can be used to support that notion, then local NHS trusts should be active in their implementation.
Better Reporting,
Stronger Compliance There is no doubt that doctors and nurses are best-positioned to know how to look after patients and I am by no means suggesting that anyone
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