MATERIAL SOLUTIONS: READER QUERY
Latest advice on provision of mops for healthcare
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CNi received a verbal enquiry, during a recent conference, on the provision of mops for cleaners in a modern healthcare facility (a substantial private hospital). The general manager needed to know how disinfection to the required standard could be achieved and how the provisions of the UK Department of Health advice note (HTM 01-04) are applied to mop decontamination.
Present arrangement In the UK and in many other regions There are two popular types of mophead: the standard Kentucky construction made from 100% cotton threads in a metal or similar head which can be screwed onto the handle; and the removable microfibre mophead which is secured to the crosshead of the mop by Velcro, for example. Cleansing of the Kentucky mophead was widely based on implied thermal disinfection (using a wash stage maintained at 71C for 3 min.) Disinfection advice was updated by the early 2000s by in a UK government advice note referenced HTM 01-04, which unfortunately made no specific mention of mops.
Meanwhile, European countries were moving on to a new European Norme (EN14065: Laundry processed textiles biocontamination control system) which did not specify any particular disinfection method but required feedback controls sufficient to give justified assurance of disinfection to the level agreed with the customer. The UK National Health Service (NHS) adopted EN14065 as a requirement of all contracts for decontamination of healthcare linen around 2010. This standard does not mention mops specifically, but this does not matter, because the standard can be readily applied successfully to mops, provided the customer includes the decontamination of mopheads in its agreed specifications for disinfection. Disinfection of mopheads requires a separate specification, because a bag of soiled and infective general healthcare textiles might have an average level of say 106 or 107 viable micro-organisms per sq cm, whereas a load of mopheads might
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switch to an alternative. Only hypochlorite and ozone disinfection appear to be immune to mutations.
Of course, some bugs (such as Bacillus cereus and Clostridium difficile) are resistant to both thermal and chemical decontamination and for these, dilution become essential. This might call for additional rinse stages in a washer extractor, or an increase in the flow to the rinse on a tunnel washer.
The way ahead
display nearer to 1011 or 1012 – that is over 100,000 times more organisms to be destroyed. This means that A laundering process to decontaminate general healthcare textiles might needs to achieve a log10 reduction of say 5, whereas to get mopheads to the same acceptable standard might require a log10 reduction of nearer 10. To get this degree of power needs careful thought and a properly designed mophead process. The simplest form of chemical decontamination is probably the use of a medium temperature (below 60C) bath containing 150 parts per million sodium hypochlorite (‘chlorine bleach’) for at least 3 minutes. This can safely be used on Kentucky style cotton mopheads, with only a slight reduction in cotton life (provided the temperature and concentration of hypochlorite are not exceeded) but it cannot be used for microfibre mopheads. There still are a variety of Chemical disinfectants are available which are suitable for microfibres, although and the feedback checks that form part of EN14065 make these generally acceptable. bugs can become resistant (by mutation) to a particular chemical, but the feedback checks will swiftly reveal this and allow a
The typical Kentucky mop is usually used with a standard mop bucket and hot water charged with an appropriate detergent. The mop is rinsed in the bucket, squeezed to remove most of the water and then used to wipe the dirty floor. It is then rinsed again in the mop bucket and squeezed again for re-use. This means that the mop is being used with progressively dirtier water, so that even a clean floor area is going to become immediately contaminated. The microfibre mop is seen as the future, because the standard method will involve a fresh and disinfected lightweight mop head being fixed to the crossbar and then dipped in the clean, uncontaminated contents of the mop bucket and squeezed out. It is then used to clean one specific area of just a few square metres, depending on how dirty the floors are. It is not dipped into the mop bucket again but stripped off the crossbar and put into the dirty mophead receptacle for decontamination. A fresh decontaminated mophead is then selected to clean the next dedicated area. This is wetted out in the uncontaminated contents of the bucket and squeezed out and used once only for the next dedicated area. It is then discarded and so on. In this way the entire floor areas are cleaned with clean water, which results in minimum spreading of infection from areas cleaned earlier.
Conclusion
We hope we have addressed this reader’s query. If you have a laundering or cleaning problem, please do not hesitate to contact LCNi editor Kathy Bowry at E: kathy.
bowry@laundryandcleaningnnews.com
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