CLEANING & HYGIENE
"It is highly likely that care homes
of the future will be staffed by
a combination of robots and humans. "
trialled in the UK. It was recently announced that Oxfordshire- based firm The Perfect Little Company is currently testing the effectiveness of robot cleaners in UK care homes. In a free trial, the company’s Abbee robots are being put to work on tasks such as vacuuming the floors.
Of course, while robots can be used to good effect in care homes, it is also vitally important that human operatives are ever-present. Human carers have a crucial role in reassuring residents and responding to their needs, while human cleaners will react more swiſtly to spills and accidents and will be able to perform detailed cleaning of frequent touch-points more effectively than even the most dexterous of robots.
However, using machines to carry out certain care home cleaning applications makes good sense. Residential homes have had to remain fully operational throughout each lockdown, and it is crucial that all areas of the home are cleaned to high standards. In order to ensure this, cleaners need to be constantly moving from room to room, which involves putting both themselves and the residents at risk.
Introducing robots therefore helps to reduce the level of human contact and aid social distancing while freeing up cleaners to perform other crucial tasks.
The use of technology in all forms has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Care home residents have had to get to grips with FaceTime and Zoom in order to see their loved ones, for example, and technology has been increasingly harnessed to improve care home cleaning in other ways.
Strict records need to be kept in residential facilities so that staff members can check which areas have been sanitised and ensure that no high-touch area has been missed – and this is particularly the case during a global pandemic. However, keeping manual records and cross-checking them to ensure that nothing has been overlooked is a time-consuming business.
Implementing a ‘smart’ soſtware solution, such as Tork Digital Cleaning Plans, can greatly improve this situation. Tork Digital
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Cleaning Plans incorporate pictograms and descriptions of every task, enabling the cleaner to tick off each job as it is completed. The care home manager has instant access to this data, which means any cleaning oversights can be spotted immediately.
It is hugely important that care home cleaners receive thorough training on how to clean a resident’s room and which tasks should be performed in which order for optimum hygiene. Essity has launched an online training package designed to clarify the key steps a cleaner should take in an occupied healthcare ward - and the module is also highly relevant to care home settings.
Tork Interactive Clean Hospital Training takes staff through various real-world scenarios, methodically detailing each step of the process, from picking up debris to emptying the bins, wiping down refuse containers and carrying out all other tasks. The module is available in more than 15 languages including Spanish, Arabic and Somali.
The pace of technological change is accelerating rapidly and the idea of filling care homes with robots is becoming increasingly normalised. It is clear that technology can be used to improve efficiency in the care home, whether it is in the form of robots or not.
However, people are also needed to provide the human touch, the quick response and the compassionate care that is so vital to residents.
So, it is highly likely that care homes of the future will be staffed by a combination of robots and humans. These new ‘teams’ will work together to carry out a range of tasks such as caring, cleaning and interacting with residents, with each working to their own strengths. Acting together, people and robots will create a highly-effective force and provide the best possible outcomes for residents.
www.tork.co.uk - 25 -
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