WATER HYGIENE & SAFETY
means that it’s seven years out of date once it comes to be used in practice. The need to establish competency across the NHS as regards water safety and sustainability is clear, with the idea of deep, broad consistency a central pillar. However, this system needs to be implemented correctly, and to take into account the viewpoint of all roles that feed into each project, to ensure that training can be consistently and effectively applied to reduce risks to water safety. Decarbonisation is then a necessary component that needs to be integrated into this base layer of understanding – allowing contractors, designers, clinicians, and Water Safety Groups to spot opportunities for emissions reduction as instinctively as they do risks for water contamination – something that is not present in existing training.
Alongside competency, the role of accountability was
highlighted at the Water Safety Forum, with the position of an Accountable Person (AP) set out in the new Building Safety Act. This new position, which assigns responsibility for a building’s safety to a single person, raises the wider concept of personal accountability for water safety and sustainability.
Impact of the Building Safety Act On one hand, this added accountability is encouraging professionals across a project to take ownership of their actions and facilities. However, the implementation of the Building Safety Act needs to be considered in tandem with the broad relevance of water safety throughout the construction and operation of a new facility, raising two important questions – where should the Accountable Person sit?, and does the Accountable Person have the necessary competence to undertake the role properly? This level of specific accountability is of course
nothing new for clinicians, who are responsible for every professional decision. However, for many, the full implications of the Building Safety Act may not be fully realised, and the legislation runs the risk of pushing untrained individuals to take on the role in return for additional work, pay, or contracts. With a framework already in place for maintaining and assessing clinical competence, the prospect of adding similar safeguards for water safety and sustainability should be implemented. While understanding the scale and complexity of
the challenge the NHS faces with water safety and decarbonisation is key, solutions are necessary, and there is opportunity to both evolve existing rules and take inspiration from across disciplines to rethink the NHS’s approach to water safety and sustainability. Part of driving this change will be the need for leaders in water policy and guidance in healthcare to begin to
find alternatives to the robust but climate-intensive thermal control that is currently the gold standard of the battle against contamination. Instead of heating the entire system, there may be opportunities to utilise more point-of-use heating that still delivers water to patients and clinicians at the temperature they need, but isn’t required to be heated to a high degree at all times, consuming a lot of energy in the process. This comes with technical challenges, but also with added benefits for patient safety; heating water to a specific temperature helps decrease the risk of scalding for patients and staff, as water is delivered at the 38 to 40 °C that they need, rather than the 60 °C required for effective infection prevention and control. However, any significant changes made to the widely accepted ‘Keep it cold, keep it clean, keep it moving’ system need to robustly guard against infection, as well as to be sustainable, and any alternative systems to traditional thermal control would require further safeguards to ensure patient safety.
Filtration Filtration is one such potential solution, or at least part of this solution. The technology is already implemented in some projects, though in many places still at the research and development stage, and these projects have highlighted the opportunity and challenges of filtration in water safety. An important point is that the filters shouldn’t only be aimed at bacteria themselves, but also the nutrients that these bacteria feed on. Where these filters should fit in an asset’s water system is a wide point of discussion across the healthcare sector, with pros and cons for different placements. Point-of-entry filtration can be particularly effective for new-build developments, and the further back in the
(Left to right): Terry Moss, Richard Wainwright, and Steven Van De Peer.
January 2025 Health Estate Journal 55
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 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88
