THOUGHT L EADE RSHI P
Tackling key issues in decontamination
The Institute of Decontamination Sciences’ Tony Sullivan spoke to CSJ about the challenges the sector has faced and the issues that still need to be addressed – from cleaning robotic instruments and rationalisation of theatre sets, to variation in pay scales for technicians across Trusts. He describes how IDSc is championing education and R&D, to drive improvement and ensure the decontamination sector receives the recognition it deserves on the platform of healthcare sciences.
In the past year, sterile services employees have experienced significant upheaval, uncertainty and fear, as a result of the pandemic. At the same time, the pause in normal activity has provided an opportunity for departments to reflect, upgrade and train, to enhance the performance of units across the UK. Tony Sullivan and his colleagues from the IDSc have been impressed at how members have risen to the challenges, during the pandemic, and the Institute has continued to support members as much as possible, during this difficult period. As well as being IDSc’s director of communications, Tony Sullivan has stepped in as acting chairperson for the IDSc until such time a new chairperson is recruited. Tony is also the external environmental & decontamination services manager for NTH Solutions, a subsidiary company owned by North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust. At the start of the pandemic, he was the decontamination services manager at the Darlington and Durham NHS Trust. Here, he saw first-hand the impact of the pandemic on decontamination staff on the frontline.
Tackling fear “At the start of the pandemic, there was a lot of scare mongering in the media and misinformation. People were initially fearful of walking down hospital corridors; staff were worried about cleaning the instruments and they were going in fully gowned as if they were dealing with Ebola. Everyone was terrified,” Tony reported. “We now know that COVID-19 is transmitted in the same way as other viruses and that cleaning and
Previously, staff would be handling 6-8 sets an hour, but suddenly they were doing just one. This meant a lot of sitting around and the more people sit around the more scared they get, as they have time to think about what could possibly happen. It has been a challenging time.
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disinfection can be very effective at reducing the risk. But it took a lot of management skills to reassure staff, with very little information available. We had to learn as we went along but, in a matter of weeks, we had the correct procedures in place and staff started to feel comfortable,” he commented. In his latest role, Tony has also been working with schools and organisations outside of healthcare to advise on effective disinfection. An issue that has emerged during the pandemic is the fact that, outside of the NHS, there is no national standard for cleaning protocols. “One concerning consequence has been the amount of ‘COVID-mongers’ who have unscrupulously taken advantage of people’s fears in relation to the virus by offering so-called ‘deep cleans’ which, upon further inspection, fall far below the NHS standard,” he commented.
During the ‘first wave’, there were also
reports of shortages of PPE across the UK and at some Trusts there was a rush to reprocess PPE, according to Tony: “Sterile
APRIL 2021
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