Washrooms
cost-effective, long-lasting, and designed to prevent over-consumption. Sustainability is another consideration, particularly when equipping a public sector establishment. Many of today’s councils have a policy of dealing only with sustainable suppliers, which means that all products must come from ethical sources. Sustainability also makes sense from a cost point of view since products that generate less waste will be more cost-effective while also helping to keep down waste disposal bills.
Maximising hygiene All bathroom equipment and consumables should also be designed to maximise hygiene, since a care home infection could quickly become serious, or even life- threatening for some. This means ‘homely’ items such as textile towels and soap bars may not generally be a good idea since these could be a source of cross-contamination. Department of Health guidance on the
prevention and control of infections in care homes1
states that all single rooms should
be equipped with a liquid soap dispenser and disposable paper towels. The guidance adds that hand washing with liquid soap
and water is vital to minimise the spread of infections in care homes, and that this practice should be actively promoted. All washroom dispensers should therefore be easy to wipe clean and be designed to give out only one shot of soap or sheet of paper at a time to help prevent the risk of cross-contamination. And of course, ease of use has to be of
paramount importance in a care home. No matter how sustainable or hygienic a washroom fixture might be, it will be useless if the resident concerned is unable to access it.
Most washroom dispensers for toilet tissue, hand towels, and soaps are designed to be intuitive and can be used effortlessly by most washroom visitors. However, tearing off a strip of paper from a toilet roll or a hand towel roll is not an easy task when one has arthritic hands. Picking up a soap bar and using it to lather the hands also requires a degree of manual dexterity, and this can make the simple action of washing the hands something of a challenge. Soap bars could also easily be contaminated before use or dropped on the floor where they would become a slipping hazard. Even locating the soap and paper towel
dispensers in a care home washroom can be a challenge. If these units are the same colour as the walls on which they are mounted, they will swiftly ‘disappear’ into the washroom décor. Ease of use and accessibility are therefore crucial points to consider.
As far as toilet tissue is concerned, soft
conventional rolls of toilet paper work well for the more able resident, since these will be a reminder of home. For the less dexterous, however, a good solution would be a system that gives out single sheets of soft toilet paper one at a time. This type of system provides easy access to the toilet tissue supply and allows the resident to use just one hand, with no tearing required. This can be a great help for residents suffering from arthritis or rheumatism while the fact that sheets are dispensed one at a time prevents the risk of over-consumption which keeps down costs and improves sustainability.
Liquid soaps provide a pleasantly mild
hand washing medium and are the solution recommended by the Department of Health. Foam soaps are another good choice because these tend to lather more easily than liquid alternatives. However, the push
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www.thecarehomeenvironment.com 41
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