Don’t Fall Foul With Your Flooring
Lucy Bilotto, European Marketing Manager of Altro, looks at why the new regulations for flooring in healthcare could help stop slips and trips.
Slips and trips are a massive issue for health services. More than a third of major injuries in this sector are caused by slips and trips, and 95% of those accidents result in broken bones. The cost of treating these, not to mention litigation claims for slips and trips incurred in a healthcare environment, is huge - and that’s before you consider slip and trip injuries to staff in the sector. Because of this, there have been recommendations in place to help prevent slips and trips in this sector for many years.
The Department of Health’s Performance Requirements for building elements used in healthcare facilities (HBN-00-10) supersedes HTM61 in England, and places even more responsibility on specifiers, project teams and anyone who commissions building and maintenance works to choose the right floor to reduce the risk of slips and trips. Even in the case of a refurbishment, a risk assessment must be carried out and the flooring specified as if it were a new project taking current and possible flooring usage into account.
The regulations set out legal requirements and standards to ensure efficient healthcare through quality and fit for purpose NHS estates. Key requirements for flooring include: • Floors in hospital corridors must be capable of withstanding loads from heavy wheeled and intense pedestrian traffic
• Carpet should be avoided in clinical areas and only considered in non-clinical areas once a risk- assessment has been carried out and a clearly defined preventative
40 | HEALTHCARE & HOSPITAL HYGIENE
maintenance and cleaning programme is in place
• Floors in operating theatres should be able to withstand the movement of heavy mobile equipment and frequent spillages, cleaning and disinfection
• Entrance floors should be slip- resistant in all weather conditions
• All flooring, including slip-resistant, should be capable of being cleaned to agreed hygiene standards and surfaces must prevent pedestrians from slipping both in areas deemed as dry and those that can become wet or contaminated
• Design should focus on enhancing patient safety, thereby contributing both to a reduction in accidents involving patients and to costs incurred by ensuing hospital stays
Healthcare providers need to provide evidence that they are adhering to these performance requirements, which also include more stringent measures of slip resistance, such as monitoring performance once installed.
Installed floors do not always behave in the same manner as new with regard to slip performance, which is one of the main reasons for bringing in this extra level of testing. Some floors quickly lose their initial slip resistance. A number of factors can influence the slip resistance – such as incorrect cleaning regimes or contamination – but, most worryingly, some slip resistant flooring just isn’t built to perform over time.
In the UK, the slip resistance rating of a floor covering will typically be quoted either as an R value or a Pendulum value. Sometimes the manufacturer will supply both. There
The Pendulum Test (recommended by the HSE for the assessment of slip resistance of flooring in the UK) is entirely different to the ramp test, measuring the co-efficient of friction (COF) between the heel of your shoe and the floor covering; it does this by swinging a dummy heel over a set length of flooring in a controlled manner. The Pendulum Test is a key method of the testing slip resistance of a floor in situ, and is being recommended in the healthcare sector.
Reputable manufacturers of safety flooring will be happy to provide results of performance over time for their products. Failure to take this into account when choosing or recommending flooring to end users could cause you to fall foul of the legislation.
www.altro.co.uk
are, however, considerable differences between the two values, so it’s important to understand what it means for your floor. The R valve used in the Uk and Europe, indicates the performance of a floor covering in the ramp test (DINS1130). It is based on angle measurements taken on a ramp until a slip occurs.
www.tomorrowscleaning.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78
