SUSTAINABILITY


Reduce patient hospitalisation times, cut carbon emissions Hospitalising a patient is the most carbon- intensive care pathway. Every day that patient is in hospital costs the NHS 125 kg in carbon equivalent emissions (CO2 76 kg in CO2


e), or e for an outpatient acute care


appointment. One way to cut the human, financial and carbon cost of this is to shorten the patients’ length of stay by reducing HCAIs. The all too obvious reality is infection


control and environmental responsibility are directly linked. Reduce HCAIs and you have better healthcare outcomes, shorter patient stays, more efficient use of resources, less medical negligence litigation and a lower carbon footprint. Yet superior infection control – as good


as it may be – is not enough. Hospital trusts need to prioritise infection control solutions that not only safeguard patients and staff but do so with a lower carbon footprint. That means specifying the latest generation of infection control equipment that has energy-saving technology built in as standard. Environmental benefits are no longer simply a ‘nice to have’. Those days are gone, never to return. Take a long, hard look at the average hospital sluice room. It is here where immediate and long-term energy – and therefore cost – savings can be made. Are your medical pulp macerators and bedpan washers using the latest green technology? The most environmentally friendly, economical and hygienic medical pulp macerator can shred up to four large pulp items in just 85 seconds – saving electricity and using just 13 litres of water per cycle. Are your macerators and bedpan


washers reliable? Are they tough enough to last longer? How much energy and water do they save? What are those savings over the complete longer lifespan of a more reliable - and therefore safer - machine?


What does that mean for multiple machines and sluice rooms across a whole hospital site? How much money will they save your trust? How many tonnes of CO2


e will they save? Machine reliability is vital – not just for


infection control but also for reducing your carbon footprint. Sluice room machines are called on to do a difficult job - especially medical pulp macerators. If not maintained correctly, any machine will eventually fail. Every machine breakdown costs an estimated £700, including £150 call-out charge, £300 labour and £250 parts. Without proper maintenance, the


average sluice room machine will break down three times per year – that is £2,100 per machine per year. Multiply that by your total sluice room estate and the costs soon mount up. The infection control risk is bad enough but think of all the unnecessary carbon dioxide created by these repairs that could have been avoided: the


100


environmental cost of manufacturing, storing and shipping the spares, the engineers’ business travel mile, and the repairs themselves. Those are just the short- and mid-term


costs. Over the long term, a machine that is poorly maintained may survive only seven years – compared with well-maintained machines that can last ten years. Capital equipment that lasts longer saves trusts the real money and equally real carbon cost of having to replace machines prematurely. Every new machine that has to be built, shipped and installed costs money and carbon - along with the cash and environmental costs of disposing of the old machine. Deferring those costs even for a few years keeps cash in the coffers and postpones the day of replacement to a time when technology will be even more efficient.


Smarter sluice room procurement reduces carbon emissions So, how can the hospitals reduce infections and their carbon footprint? In the sluice room, it means having energy- efficient macerators that are hands-free, with anti-microbial surfaces and safety features - such as audio annunciation - that reduce staff errors, improve safety and underpin or increase machine uptime. It also means looking at the medical pulp used in wards. Simple changes in procurement can reduce carbon footprints and improve patients’ and clinicians’ safety. Single-use items of medical pulp offer superior infection control because they are macerated rather than washed and reused – dramatically reducing the risk of cross-contamination. Yet it is a mistake to think they are environmentally wasteful.


They are not, for several reasons. Firstly, they are made entirely from


recycled cardboard, newspapers and magazines. Secondly, their useful life does not end in a hospital macerator. The shredded material is flushed into the sewerage system. It will end up in a sewage treatment plant where the pulp is filtered out and transformed into agricultural fertiliser. The latest new disposable bedpans


are self-supporting: they do not need plastic supports. These 1.2-litre bedpans – manufactured from 100 per cent recycled newspaper pulp – are waterproof for up to four hours and can support up to 130 kg in weight. Yet because they do not have a plastic support, the entire bedpan and its contents can go straight into the macerator. They deliver superior infection control and are more environmentally friendly than old-style bedpans that need plastic supports.


Fully biodegradable and flushable cleansing wipes The inconvenient truth about most supposedly flushable wipes is that you cannot and should not flush them. Many of them can clog up your macerators – resulting in expensive breakdowns and the increased risk of cross-contamination and infections. Furthermore, the ones that do not damage your machines, the ones that make it through the outflow could still end up blocking your drains or creating fatbergs in the public sewerage system. The wipes are not flushable and they are not environmentally friendly because they will not break down as well as their manufacturers claim.


Hygenex medical pulp. IFHE DIGEST 2022

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  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116