Hospital Superbug Feature
High tech methods to defeat hospital superbugs!
A new high tech centre has been opened at Aintree Hospital to help beat hospital superbugs such as MRSA and C. difficle. The decontamination unit - the first of its kind in the region - features high-powered steam hoses and fogging machines to blast the superbugs. It also reduces the time it takes to clinically clean ward areas by up to 50%, allowing new patients to be admitted to beds more quickly.
Normally, the cleaning of patient areas, which also involves the cleaning of beds and furniture, happens on the wards and is limited because of the nature of the chemicals that can be used. This new facility provides the hospital with a dedicated area where equipment can be stripped and deep cleaned within a purpose-built area. The equipment is blasted with high-powered steam hoses and allowed to dry before being treated with a hydrogen peroxide dry mist. Trust officials have welcomed the new facility, seeing it as an important factor in their battle against superbug infection. When a patient shows signs of infection, the staff cleans any occupied area thoroughly to make sure that the infection does not spread to other patients. In the past, that level of cleaning was very labour-intensive and could take several hours. With the new facility it is hoped that this deep cleaning routine can be carried out quickly and efficiently, stopping the spread of the superbugs in their tracks and allowing new patients to be admitted much more quickly.
The equipment can clean everything from beds to wheelchairs, fans and specialist medical equipment and marks a major change in the approach to how hospital hygiene is tackled. Investment in these kinds of dedicated cleaning facilities has shown excellent returns, with cases of MRSA and C. difficile falling as a result of their use. The hospital, which has one of the highest annual rates of superbug infections in the country, hopes that it will continue to see a downward trend in the number of infections recorded at its health centres and hospitals.
Superbugs are not going to go away any time soon, but the battle to defeat the spread of infection is finally starting to pay off. Investment in hygiene equipment to ensure that hospitals are clean environments will inevitably help those who are susceptible to infection - the weak and sick. Hospital superbugs can be defeated, as long as an adequate policy of hygiene is implemented in all hospitals. As more Trusts look at high tech methods of doing this, it is also hoped that they will see a fall in the number of compensation claims being brought against them from the victims of superbug infection. It is a preventable complication, and one that needs constant vigilance if it isn’t to take hold again as it did in earlier years.
Anything that helps to defeat the spread of superbugs is to be welcomed by everyone. At some time, we all need the NHS and if we are to be reassured that it is safe to go into hospital, they need to continually find new and improved ways of defeating these knotty problems. Whether that’s through the use of high tech equipment or simple and effective cleaning routines is immaterial. Hospitals need to be continually vigilant and any lapse in that vigilance needs to be spotlighted. If that is through a compensation claim for medical negligence, then so be it. In that way, the hospital is forced to address immediate concerns about its duty of care towards all patients, not just those who have suffered as a result of a lapse in attention. Hospital superbugs still wait in the wings, looking for an opportunity to re-establish themselves within a clinical environment. They must not be given that opportunity.
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