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Healthcare uniforms could be a 'time bomb' states study
02/09/2011 00:00:00
A recent report claims that nurses uniforms that are washed at home could be spreading infections in hospitals, due to the lack of true thermal disinfection in domestic machines.
The following article appeared in the Daily Telegraph in August 2011:
A recent report claims that nurses uniforms that are washed at home could be spreading infections in hospitals. The study calls the practice an infectious "time bomb" and criticises the Department of Health for tolerating the potentially deadly risk to patients and the public by home-laundered uniforms. The report claimed domestic washing machines do not have the capacity to reach the high temperatures needed to kill all germs.
According to the Health Protection Agency, there were 1,898 cases of MRSA
in 2009-10 and 25,604 cases of Clostridium difficile.
Britain remains one of the few European countries to allow staff to wash their uniform at home. "The Department of Health and NHS ignore the risks of home-washed uniforms at their peril," .said Murray Simpson, chief executive of the Textiles Services Association (TSA) who produced the report. "Nurses' uniforms are by definition an unwitting potential time bomb!'
The TSAhas urged the Department of Health to undertake an urgent rethink to
ensure uniforms are professionally washed.
Ian Hargreaves, of the Society of Hospital Linen Services and Laundry Managers,
said: "The Department of Health has double standards. While it advocates washing at home as being safe, it still insists that where uniforms are processed in-house or by external contractors they are subject to thermal disinfection. "This must be seen as dual standards or a waste of energy."
Last year, a number of hospitals in Northern Ireland began professionally washing the uniform of staff in A&E, burns and critical care units. A Department of Health spokesman said: "Uniform laundering arrangements are a local matter for each trust. "At present there is no conclusive evidence that uniforms and workwear play a direct role in spreading infection."
