Decontamination
Focusing on today’s issues in decontamination
The Central Sterilising Club (CSC) has been tackling challenges in the decontamination sector since it was first established in 1960. Over the years, the Annual Study Day has become a key focal point in the calendar, creating a space where all those working in the sector can come together to discuss the topical issues of the moment. Patient safety remains at the forefront, but sustainability is also emerging as an urgent priority.
The Central Sterilising Club’s Annual Study Day provides an opportunity to discuss key issues within the decontamination and infection prevention sectors. In recent years, sustainability has risen to the forefront of the agenda. With the devastating impacts of climate change dominating the headlines over the Summer, the urgency to tackle the issue is now escalating – now more than ever. One recent study has found that climate change driven heatwaves have resulted in a doubling of overheating incidents at NHS sites, including hospital wards and surgeries in the last five years. These global warming incidents have also increasingly resulted in cancelled operations, staff shortages and even loss of medicine. 1 Currently around 4% (9.5 billion miles) of all road travel in England relates to the NHS, contributing around 14% of the system’s total emission. The healthcare sector is one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions and environmental waste, and decontamination departments will have a key contribution to offer, by facilitating the safe transition from single use to reusable, as well as in terms of finding ways to reduce water, energy usage, waste streams associated with decontamination processes, and tackling transportation related congestion and pollution, which cause substantial negative impacts on the environment and human health. At last year’s Central Sterilising Club’s Annual
Study Day, Paul Chivers, who at the time was head of the PPE Innovation and Sustainability Team for NHS Supply Chain (and now operates as Paul@PCC Sustainable Solutions Ltd),
highlighted some of the key initiatives being taken to encourage development of more reusable PPE, and improve the sustainability of products already in use. Some of the developments, he explained, not only have the potential to substantially reduce the NHS’s procurement and waste disposal costs, but also to significantly cut carbon emissions. His session on ‘Innovation and sustainability
in PPE decontamination’, discussed how he and his team successfully identified a reusable Type IIR mask, which was piloted in line with NHS England’s National Infection Prevention and
Climate change driven heatwaves have resulted in a doubling of overheating incidents at NHS sites, including hospital wards and surgeries in the last five years.
Control Manual for England, to support reusable mask safety.
Discussing what the team had achieved, he highlighted the so-called ‘Glove MOOC’, or ‘massive open online course’, which he explained was a one-hour education information package, based largely on what Great Ormond Street Hospital achieved in 2018, when staff managed to reduce examination glove usage by 33%. “33% of our glove usage across health and
social care – currently six billion a year – is quite a sizable difference; a lot of carbon, waste, and procurement costs,” he commented. Launched in August 2021, the glove-related MOOC became available to everybody in health and social care, as well as the independent sector. “It’s currently being used by people in
Australia and Hungary as well. To date, over a thousand people have signed up to it, and we are continuing to promote it,” he reported.
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