REGULAR
A higher standard
David Garcia, Chair of the British Cleaning Council (BCC), says that brushing up on our cleaning standards will limit winter illnesses.
A lot of people seem to be suffering from seasonal illnesses at the moment. Colds and the latest strain of COVID are circulating, and we have to be prepared for a possible upsurge in flu cases in the coming months.
Seasonal illnesses seem to surge every
autumn and winter. You only have to think back to last winter, when the NHS was showing the strain due to a tidal wave of winter illnesses, for a warning about what could happen in the next few months. This is why a new initiative launched by the BCC is more important and timely than ever.
We are calling for clear and effective cleaning standards to be introduced across workplaces and public spaces in the UK, to build on the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Handwashing Standards released earlier this month.
The handwashing standards are a firm foundation for providing safe and healthy facilities, though if we really want to improve UK public health, save lives, protect the economy from billions of pounds lost every year in sickness absence and prevent thousands of school days being lost to sickness annually, we want to see the wide adoption of our newly-published guidance framework as well.
Higher standards of cleaning in workplaces and public spaces, combined with the handwashing measures recommended by the WHO, are the best way of reducing the spread of common infections such as flu and protecting against another pandemic.
The Strategic Framework for Achieving Cleanliness and Hygiene in Public Environments we have just launched builds on the WHO standards by providing a framework of systematic guidance on how to develop cleaning and hygiene policies for workplaces and public spaces, aimed at preventing the spread of infectious disease.
It gives expert guidance on the issues and methods to be considered when designing a cleaning regime and can be adapted/tailored to specific environments in order to create a cleaner, safer and healthier environment for everyone.
The aim is to enable managers across a range of environments, for example leisure, retail, hospitality and public transport facilities, to develop a policy for delivering targeted hygiene which is appropriate to the specific needs and challenges of the environment they are responsible for, and which includes both cleaning and the subsequent measurement of outcomes.
24 | TOMORROW'S CLEANING
Enabling organisations to develop their own policies using the framework guidelines will potentially contribute to the creation of a resilient UK whilst reassuring the public regarding environmental cleanliness. A national standard must be considered as the bedrock for health and wellbeing.
The framework includes: •
• assessing risks • •
the definition of hygiene and cleanliness
establishing cleaning and hygiene standards implementing cleaning and hygiene procedures
• continuously monitoring and improving the process.
Examples of areas covered include: • The need to identify the sites and surfaces where the probability of contamination is highest and where there is the greatest risk of infection spread. This may include hands, high-touch surfaces such as door handles, light switches and shared equipment, cleaning utensils and surfaces where food is prepared or handled.
• The need to develop cleaning protocols, by creating detailed cleaning procedures for different areas and surfaces, including the frequency of cleaning, the types of cleaning products to use and the proper techniques for application.
We are now planning a pilot project which will see the framework implemented in one or more schools. It is hoped that the results of this trial will encourage the wide adoption of the framework in other workplace situations and public spaces.
For a free copy of the Strategic Framework for Achieving Cleanliness and Hygiene in Public Environments, please email the BCC via
Compsec@britishcleaningcouncil.org.
www.britishcleaningcouncil.org x.com/TomoCleaning
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
