Improving healthcare hygiene

HOW DOES the washroom contribute to a healthcare environment?

Every element of a healthcare setting has an impact on patient care and one of the priorities to get right is the washroom.

Washrooms in hospitals, clinics, GP practices or dental surgeries should be safe, clean and accessible for patients, visitors and health professionals. They should be well designed, provide good hygiene and be able to cope with heavy footfall. And they should make a good impression on visitors too.

Promoting hygiene is vital in any healthcare setting. One of the greatest challenges is preventing infection in the first place. Germs can transmit easily though coughs and sneezesand hand to hand contact, so good hand hygiene is essential.

Modern healthcare washrooms should incorporate smooth seamless wall panels that can be quickly and easily wiped down, hygienic cubicles with minimal clutter to attract germs and fixtures like touch-free taps and dispensers to optimise hygiene.

What should providers look for?

By choosing washroom fittings that are specially designed for healthcare environments, providers can ensure these places are clean and hygienic.

When it comes to dispensers, they should seek out touch-free, easy-clean systems to maintain high hygiene standards, whilst reducing the time needed for cleaning and maintenance.  Healthcare settings will be used by people of all ages and abilities, so it’s essential to choosedispensers that anyone can easily operate.

Washrooms will experience more traffic and be in constant use throughout the day by patients, visitors and staff. They should therefore feature impact-resistant and lockable units that can cope with heavy use.

Choosing durable, high-quality materials for the washroom will help to reduce maintenance costs, minimise disruption for repairs and extend the lifespan of products, which contributes to how cost effective the washroom is.

Patients may also judge the quality of care they receive by the condition of the washroom. A clean, hygienic space will therefore give someone confidence that the healthcare environment is good.

How can the washroom help in preventing infection?

It’s important to reduce the likelihood of contracting a healthcare associated infection and good washroom design can help to do this.  

Germs thrive in warm, damp, high touch areas in washrooms like flush handles, door handles, bins and hard to reach areas, so it’s important to ensure that cleaning teams can easily access all surfaces to clean them effectively. 

Designing in some simple and practical features, such as easy to clean surfaces, touch-free technology, good ventilation, sanitary waste disposal solutions can make a big difference. 

It’s obviously important to encourage good hand hygiene too, by having a good supply of soap and paper products to support this.

Advice on promoting good hand hygiene

In healthcare settings, frequent and thorough handwashing and drying is still one of the best ways to combat infection. Handwashing and sanitising products should therefore be readily available in washrooms. They can also be placed in prominent high-traffic areas, such as corridors, too. Soap and paper dispensers should be quick and easy to operate to encourage people to use them. They should also be well-stocked and easy to refill to avoid run-outs.

Good hand hygiene is essential in reducing the spread of germs and viruses, with the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) citing that washing hands with soap and water can reduce deaths from diarrhoeal disease by up to 50 per cent. 

Hand hygiene should never be overlooked in healthcare settings and providers should strive to make the process of washing hands as easy as possible for everyone.

Soap dispensers should be high capacity and deliver a generous shot to encourage single, efficient use. They should ideally be non-drip to help keep spaces clean and each new soap cartridge should include a new nozzle to minimise the likelihood of bacteria harbouring.

Paper towels are widely recognised by many health bodies and organisations, including the NHS, as being the most hygienic hand drying method. Furthermore, bacteria transmits faster on wet hands, so paper towel dispensers should provide a long lasting supply of towels to encourage people to dry their hands thoroughly. 

The type of paper towel dispenser you provide for people is important. For instance, dispensers for folded towels will run out more quickly, so maintenance staff may be tempted to overfill dispensers with more than the recommended towels which can make it difficult for people to pull out a single towel from the bottom. 

A mechanical hands-free roll towel dispenser is a good option in healthcare environments. As well as optimising hygiene because the user does not need to touch the unit, these dispensers tend to offer a higher paper capacity than folded towels. 

How do you balance hygiene and sustainability in the washroom?

Sustainability is an increasingly important consideration across the healthcare sector with 100% of NHS tenders now required to include sustainability and social value criteria.

Good washroom design can help healthcare environments to reduce their environmental impact and cut operating costs. Choosing products that have been manufactured using sustainable processes, opting for materials that are durable to extend their lifespan and looking at ways to reduce water and energy consumption can help to support a facility’s wider environmental objectives.

Washrooms typically use substantial amounts of soap, water, toilet tissue and hand towels every day. And they produce waste. This all has an impact on the environment. It’s therefore important to choose the right consumables for the individual washroom because it can make a noticeable difference to how sustainable it is.

When considering paper products, look for suppliers that use Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) certified base sheet paper and have products made from recycled content. Similarly, take a look at their packaging and how they are reducing the amount of plastic they use. 

Seek out partners that are committed to sustainable and responsible sourcing and use (FSC®) certified paper. Do they offer 100% recycled paper options? Is their packaging fully recyclable?

Other tweaks can work too.  Traditional C-fold towels, for instance, can lead to over-use because it is difficult to pull just one towel from the dispenser, meaning users often take more towels than they need and end up throwing the unused ones away.

A mechanical hands-free roll towel dispenser, which dispenses single sheets to encourage users to take only what they need, may be a better option. 

Swapping to foam soap is another simple change, with research suggesting that this type of soap can reduce water consumption by 15% compared with liquid soaps.   

What types of washroom solutions are ideal for healthcare settings?

I’d recommend looking for full suite systems that provide soap, hand sanitiser, toilet paper and hand drying to deliver provide superior hygiene, whilst offering strong environmental benefits. High capacity systems are ideal for facilities like doctor’s surgeries and dental practices, which often don’t have a continuous onsite team to check on dispensers.

The Raphael proprietary washroom system from Northwood, is for instance, a good solution for healthcare environments because it has been developed with hygiene and sustainability in mind. It also delivers on cost-in-use, performance and sustainability.

Designed to optimise hygiene in the highest traffic washrooms, the Raphael hand drying dispensers provide contactless dispensing and the toilet tissue dispenser incorporates BioKleen™ technology to inhibit the growth or spread of bacteria. Made from a single-piece shell, they are easy to wipe clean and all towels and rolls are fully enclosed for added hygiene.

The high-capacity roll towel dispensers provide around 500 dries before needing replenishment, with some offering stub-roll transfer to ensure zero waste. The hand drying systems dispense one at a time flat sheets to avoid overuse and the folded towel dispenser has a 1,000-sheet capacity. The dispensers do not to free roll, helping to reduce over usage.

Washrooms in healthcare environments are about much more than just appearances. They are hard-working spaces that need to support infection prevention and promote good hygiene.  And, with the right solutions in place, they can really help to combat bacteria and germs and create a positive experience for everyone who uses them.

Paul Mulready is marketing manager at Northwood

For more information, visit www.northwood.co.uk

Tel: 01952 236 930