CLEANING & HYGIENE
Through the Wash
There will never be a more critical time for ensuring best practice in care home laundries. Mark Drinkall, Christeyns Professional Hygiene National Sales Manager, reminds us how.
Running a safe, efficient and effective laundry is essential and never more so than in the current circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 crisis.
Every step of the process from collection of dirty laundry from a bedroom to the return of clean, hygienic laundry to that bedroom should be organised and controlled.
Christeyns has been supporting care homes for many years via our trusted partners, using expertise in application and practical training to pass on our wealth of experience in laundry technology and disinfection. As the care industry copes with one of its most challenging periods yet, it is crucial that best practice is consistently adhered to in all aspects of care home operation, every day with every process.
Staff: It is recommended that staff should change into uniforms at the site rather than travelling from home in them, and that the uniforms are laundered to the appropriate standard in the controlled environment of the on-site laundry. It is, however, recognised that this may not be possible in all homes. All practical steps to ensure that staff uniforms are hygienic when in use and do not present a contamination risk inside or outside the home must be taken.
All staff should wear appropriate PPE when handling linen, particularly foul or infected linen, and when handling laundry chemicals. Follow the guidance provided by statutory bodies
- 20 - and on the packaging of the chemicals.
Your machine and/or chemical supplier should be happy to provide training to ensure that staff are aware of how to get the best out of equipment, promote efficiency and ensure safety standards are met.
Rooms: Ensure that all linen which is, or is suspected to be, foul or infected is placed into a soluble red bag and then sealed in a non-permeable bag before it leaves the bedroom. It should be transported directly to the laundry. Any solids should be removed from the laundry before it is placed in the soluble bag.
Keep clean and dirty laundry separate and ensure that there can be no transfer of infection from dirty to clean linen, washing hands and using clean PPE where appropriate.
Transport and Storage: Have separate storage and transport arrangements for clean and used laundry, ensure these are cleaned regularly.
Housekeeping in the Laundry: Keep the machines, floors, trolleys and surfaces clean. If a water soſtener is in use ensure that it is functioning correctly, hard water will cause results problems and damage the washers over time. Have separate containers or trolleys for soiled and clean linen. Do not open red bags before they go into the washer. Never
www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
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