Handing out infectious wisdom – in hospital and in the community
It seems strange that it is now just under 10 years since the award winning initiative “Clean your hands campaign” was introduced by the Department of Health to try to stem the incessant rise of avoidable healthcare associated infections in our hospitals.
Unfortunately and unwisely the “Clean your hands campaign” was closed down by the previous administration in 2010 under the instruction of Andrew Burnham the then Health Secretary against the advice of many healthcare professionals and ourselves.
We believe that had the “Clean your hands campaign” continued to its next progression and expanded to encompass the general population which we asked for, avoidable healthcare associated infections in the community would have enjoyed a similar dramatic reduction that had been achieved in our hospitals. Even now after all these years and with millions spent on educating medical staff, hand hygiene compliance is still woefully inadequate and now with no education campaign, we are seeing infections rise in our hospitals and community.
MRSA Action UK in collaboration with Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust Pinderfields Hospital and Outwood Primary Academy School Kirkhamgate near Wakefield, have instigated an initiative where the hospital have asked the students at the school to design and produce hand hygiene posters for the hospital to display reminding healthcare professionals about the importance of hand hygiene in fighting avoidable healthcare infections. This is involving tomorrow’s generation to help the present generation to improve the care they provide.
In partnership with this, MRSA Action UK attended the hospitals infection control study day along with Julie Storr and Claire Kilpatrick to give presentations at breakout sessions, delivering heart rendering lessons in why beating avoidable healthcare infections was so vital. Our message was simple and set a challenge for all healthcare professionals to “Give soap a chance, look to the past and learn from it; so that today we can change tomorrow” Details of the event are available on MRSA Action UK’s website http://mrsaactionuk.net/pinderfields2014.html
If we look back just 10 years we would be horrified by the conditions that patients endured, however we must never be complacent we are only one step away from returning to that very position and we must be constantly vigil. It is our firm belief that we must involve tomorrow’s generation to develop and design the very message on the importance of hand hygiene and in doing so we can educate the future generations on how to stay healthy and to avoid those infections that cause us so much problems today. I firmly believe that by involving and educating the young on the importance of hand hygiene in fighting bacteria we can win this battle.
Derek Butler
Chair
MRSA Action UK
Tel: 07762 741114
Email: derek.butler@mrsaactionuk.net
http://mrsaactionuk.net/
References:
National Patient Safety Agency. Ready, steady, go. The full guide to implementing the cleanyourhandscampaign in your trust. 2004. www.npsa.nhs.uk/EasySiteWeb/GatewayLink.aspx?alId=5923
Stone S, Fuller C, Savage J, Cookson BD, Hayward, Cooper B, et al. Evaluation of the national Cleanyourhands campaign to reduce Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia and Clostridium difficile infection in hospitals in England and Wales by improved hand hygiene: four year, prospective, ecological, interrupted time series study. BMJ 2012;344:e3005 http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e3005
WHO. Appendix 4: monitoring hand hygiene by direct methods. In: WHO guidelines on hand hygiene in health care. 2009. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241597906_eng.pdf
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