SLUICE ROOM EFFICIENCY
Intelligence and data key to an efficient sluice room
Better asset monitoring and reporting is boosting the performance and reliability of sluice room equipment – improving patient outcomes, cutting costs, and enhancing efficiencies, says infection prevention and control specialist, DDC Dolphin. Zoe Allen, the company’s Marketing and Product Innovation director, outlines the new opportunities in this field for those charged with maintaining such equipment – typically NHS EFM professionals – via the ability to audit, collate, and evaluate data on the performance, reliability, and operation over time of individual machines.
In the broadcast and printed media these days we regularly see images of ambulances queuing up outside overburdened and under-resourced hospitals. This is one of the most obvious and immediate signs that the NHS is facing some of its greatest challenges in its history, especially with continuing difficulties in recruiting nurses and clinicians, and the impact of the clinical backlog that has built up in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is little sign of a respite as hospitals struggle to cope with surging patient numbers. Hard-pressed NHS Trusts are declaring critical incidents with worrying regularity – a scenario that would be even more alarming if it were reported more widely. This crisis has become so commonplace that some Trusts are quietly cancelling appointments and procedures without highlighting the situation as critical. The UK has just 2.4 hospital beds per 1,000 people, British Medical Association data reveals. That is less than half the EU OECD average, with the UK ranking second-worst in a table of 23 nations. The idea of one of your hospital wards having to close due to a healthcare-associated infection (HCAI) is unthinkable. At a time when you can’t spare a single bed, losing a ward to infection – however briefly – cannot be allowed to happen.
FM professionals on the frontline Maintaining stringent hygiene levels in sluice rooms in hospitals is one of number of key priorities for the EFM professionals whose job it is to keep hospitals and the spaces within them in a safe and hygienic condition conducive to first-class care. Estates and facilities professionals are as much in the frontline as doctors, nurses, and other clinicians, when it comes to infection prevention and control. They’re the ones who will face additional scrutiny should infections occur because vital sluice room equipment has broken down due to insufficient planned preventative maintenance (PPM). However, with all the
The Panamatic bedpan washer-disinfector is among a number of DDC Dolphin machines which NHS Trusts or other care providers can request for a free trial.
added pressures facing NHS Trusts, and the many competing priorities that EFM teams face, it is becoming harder than ever to monitor the condition of sluice room machines – especially when there are so many individual units scattered across Trusts’ multiple sites.
A need for regular servicing Medical pulp macerators and bedpan washer-disinfectors need regular servicing. Reliable machines may have long lifespans, but those durations are finite. So, Trusts’ FM teams must monitor the condition of these machines closely, and be able to forecast accurately when they will need replacing. This is seldom straightforward – but even less so when the various machines across a sizeable estate have been installed at different times by a number of suppliers. Each company will have its own maintenance schedules, and its own means of delivering aftercare. There is also the ever-pressing
matter of keeping your sluice rooms supplied with consumables such as medical pulp, bedpan washer, and scale inhibitor, all while remaining in budget and on course to hit the NHS Net Zero Carbon Footprint targets. All of this is not an easy task for EFM personnel already facing the challenge of looking after ageing infrastructure amid tight budget constraints, meeting compliance requirements, and ensuring a comfortable, clean, welcoming, and accessible environment for all the buildings’ users. Playing their part – in tandem with clinicians and nursing personnel – in maintaining a clean and hygienic patient and staff environment that minimises the risk of infection transmission has always been a priority for hospital EFM teams. However in the wake of the pandemic, and the lessons learned about transmission routes, the whole area of infection prevention and control has fallen under ever-increasing scrutiny.
April 2023 Health Estate Journal 55
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