CLEANING & INFECTION CONTROL All Hands on Deck


Paul Jakeway, Marketing Director at skincare specialist Deb, explains how care home providers can raise levels of staff compliance, whilst also improving the skin condition of employees.


Care homes can be hotbeds for the spread of infections. To protect residents, providers need to take hand hygiene seriously. But with institutions being asked to do more with fewer resources, the integration of effective hand hygiene can be a challenge.


According to the Department of Health, hand hygiene should happen after each and every “episode” of caring – how can care home providers ensure this is the case?


Make sure you have the


right facilities As the Department of Health stresses: accessible hand hygiene facilities are a crucial first step in any effort to increase hand hygiene compliance. If they do not exist, staff should immediately bring this to the attention of care home management. If they do, care home providers should ask themselves: are our facilities at their most effective? How accessible are they?


Modern dispenser design allows for flexibility when it comes to the location of hand hygiene opportunities. Rather than have one centrally-located facility, which might require staff to walk through the building to have access, dispensers can be strategically placed throughout a care home. For instance, at the exit or entry point to a resident’s room, increasing the likelihood of use.


Educate and train your staff The Department of Health, the Care Quality Commission and the World Health Organisation (WHO) all agree that ongoing staff education and training are crucial. Care home staff need to know not only when or how often to wash their hands,but also how.


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Choose the right products Hand washing with soap is a fundamental step in hand hygiene practice. Apart from removing any visible soilings from hands, a good hand washing technique will remove high levels of bacteria and viruses present on the skin.


Hand sanitising is very useful in reducing microbial counts on visibly clean hands when access to running water is inconvenient. In care environments, alcohol is the preferred active biocide for skin sanitising without the need for rinsing. Effective hand sanitisers can kill up to 99.999% of common germs.


Alcohol sanitisers, for example, are not suitable for use on hands that are dirty, contaminated and soiled (e.g. faeces, bodily fluids) or during outbreaks of diarrhoeal illness (e.g. norovirus or Clostridium difficile). In such cases, washing hands with soap and water is necessary. The WHO says that, often, techniques are inappropriate, even where compliance is high. Lack of knowledge is one of the greatest barriers to better hand hygiene practices.


The guidance the WHO publishes on this is known as the ‘Five Moments for Hand Hygiene’. This approach aims for hand hygiene to be performed at the correct moments, and at the correct location, within the flow of care delivery.


The WHO also recommends that healthcare providers invest in training and educational kits, which can help demonstrate the correct hand washing techniques and the right use of products. The monitoring of practices in healthcare environments is also advised.


Restore creams are the third element to a fully thought-out skincare programme. Frequent hand washing makes it necessary to regularly replenish the natural oils and secretions lost from the skin via the use of a conditioning cream. Restore creams have been formulated to help maintain the skin in a healthy condition by keeping it soft and supple. They should be applied at the end of the working day and at lunch breaks.


Co-operate The implementation of a hand hygiene programme works best if it is done in co-operation, with care home providers, skin care suppliers and organisations working cohesively. If care home providers provide strategically placed, accessible facilities, offer ongoing staff education and training, and choose the right skin care products, the spread of germs and bacteria can be kept to a minimum and the health of employees’ skin can be prioritised.


www.debgroup.com/uk www.tomorrowscare.co.uk


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