WHAT’S NEW? HAND WASHING MANAGEMENT


Good hand hygiene is critical to minimising the spread of infection in any workplace, residential or leisure environment. But when the water supply is compromised, what are the


options? In this article, Chris Whieldon, Director at Teal Patents – specialists in portable and mobile hand washing - considers the risks and the options for mitigating them.


Does a plumbing outage


constitute a crisis? A plumbing outage - either planned or emergency - poses a risk to the health and wellbeing of teams and service users as well as a potential loss of business. Breakdowns, plumbing outages and even regular maintenance must all be considered and planned for.


“Alcohol hand gels and foams alone cannot be relied on to kill most


contaminants including the deadly clostridium difficile or norovirus.”


The level of risk very much depends on the type of activities going on in your building. Good hand hygiene is highly important in controlling the risk and spread of infection.


From care home providers to healthcare workers, teachers to children and caterers to beauty clinics, being able to wash hands, under running water, with soap, is a vital part of reducing the risk of infection and the spread of germs, across all industries.


How do you mitigate the risk? To mitigate the risk, you need to consider all aspects of the building’s operations, including how water is used, where the supply comes from and what routine maintenance is carried out. This will ensure the risks of contamination and breakdown of the systems are kept to a minimum.


From this, you can determine the levels of hygiene required for your business. This is especially important in clinics, healthcare settings or buildings occupied by those potentially vulnerable to infections such as children or the elderly.


What are your contingency options? Worldwide opinion has long concurred that the gold standard in infection control is washing hands under running hot


16 | TOMORROW’S FM


water with soap. This is supported by the Infection Prevention Society which warns that alcohol hand gels and foams alone cannot be relied on to kill most contaminants including the deadly Clostridium difficile or Norovirus.


Portable handwashing remains the best way to maintain high hand hygiene standards and control the spread of infections when there is no access to mains, running water or drainage. TEAL Patents offers customers the option to either hire or purchase, enabling users to minimise the cost of continuing to run their services.


Legionella in a


healthcare setting When Penn Hospital in Wolverhampton confirmed that legionella bacteria had been found in its water system during a routine audit, it closed down access to some sinks, basins, baths, showers and toilets. This triggered its contingency plans to provide portable handwashing facilities, in order to protect patients, staff and visitors.


Penn’s infection prevention and control team installed TEAL Patents’ portable Hygienius®


MediWash


units because they work without access to mains water or drainage


and deliver NHS-compliant routines.


Loraine Priest, lead nurse infection prevention and control, said: “Identifying legionella in a scheduled test has also proved our contingency plans work. TEAL portable handwash units were in those plans and played a key role in keeping the hospital open. It’s reassuring to know you can prepare for the unexpected and those preparations pay-off in real life scenarios.”


In summary Teal works with many different industries including, schools and nurseries, the food industry and street food as well as the beauty industry and Teal’s core market of civil engineering and utilities, always ensuring hand hygiene is kept at the gold standard.


www.tealwash.com twitter.com/TomorrowsFM


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