A steady supply of hygiene It's vital to keep your stock levels high during a pandemic, explains Robert Scott.
The pandemic has amplified the already important need to maintain excellent cleanliness and hygiene, particularly in healthcare settings.
With increased rates of cleaning and the need for impeccable infection control processes comes the need to maintain a healthy stock of cleaning products. With Brexit causing some delays to supply chains of products manufactured internationally, choosing British makes sense at this time. Also, choosing a reputable British manufacturer means you can be sure that the products you choose are of the highest quality and can be relied upon to meet the needs of the healthcare sector.
Gill Ireson, Head of Sales at Robert Scott, explained: “The healthcare sector is operating at an incredibly high demand at the moment, and some suppliers are struggling to keep up. This may potentially cause frontline cleaners, working in key industries, not to have the stock of vital cleaning equipment they require.
“We have long been proud to manufacture a number of our core products in Britain, to maintain a good supply and to guarantee the quality of the end product for our customers. As we’ve seen the initial impact that Brexit is having on supply chains from other countries in the context of a global pandemic, it’s vital that our customers can access high quality products at short notice.”
Many container shipments have been hit by large increases in costs, in some cases rising from $2300 to $15,000 with a portion of that cost hike needing to be met by the customer. Robert Scott has been able to secure UK supply by increasing its warehouse capacity and safely increasing production at its mills in the North West of England.
Gill added: “As the UK’s largest manufacturer of mops, Robert Scott can offer guaranteed supply to these important sectors, and also respond very quickly to sudden increases in demand.”
Meanwhile, a trend towards disposable cleaning products in response to tightened infection control processes has boosted sales of single-use wipes and similar products. Gill continued: “We have seen a change in approach to sustainable cleaning products over the last year, as orders of single-use products shot up in contrast to previous years.
“An example of this is the big white mop, which is ideal for pandemic cleaning as a disposable product, which is manufactured in a more sustainable way using offcuts of non-woven fabric to reduce waste. It also comes with colour- coded sockets to aid the reduction of cross-contamination.
“At the end of 2019, we sold about 175,000 of these a week. Now we are averaging 322,000 each week. While these mops can be used for single-use cleaning, they are also reusable if desired, so they bridge the gap between single- use and multi-use cleaning products.”
46 | HEALTHCARE HYGIENE
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Infection control and maintaining rigid cleaning processes are set to remain high on the agenda for cleaning in 2021, and nowhere more so than in the healthcare sector. Earlier this year, Robert Scott announced the results of its latest customer research which showed that these two priorities would remain of vital importance this year, with increased cleaning frequencies and use of new cleaning technologies remaining commonplace.
Gill concluded: “There is no doubt that there’s a lot of pressure on those operating cleaning businesses in healthcare settings. It will remain incredibly important that cleaners adhere to the most rigid processes regarding infection control and cross-contamination, but also that they have timely access to the products they need to do their jobs properly.
“There will be no excuses for breaching infection control processes, so cleaning managers must make sure their supply chains are strong and that they can source equipment without delays.”
www.robert-scott.co.uk
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