Commitment to patient safety

Hundreds of millions of patients around the world are affected by health care-associated infections (HCAIs) each year. Most of these infections are preventable through good hand hygiene – cleaning hands at the right times and in the right way.
    
The Clean Care is Safer Care initiative, launched in October 2005 by the World Health Organization, aims to promote best hand hygiene practices globally, at all levels of healthcare, as a first step in ensuring high standards of infection control and patient safety. An annual campaign – SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands – was launched in 2009. More than two thirds of Ministries of Health from Member States have signed formal statements pledging their commitment to take action to reduce HCAI at the country level, in particular through hand hygiene improvement. Furthermore, 13,226 hospitals and health-care facilities in 153 countries or areas have registered their commitment to hand hygiene as part of this global campaign.

Self-Assessment Framework
The call to action for this year’s campaign, taking place 5 May, was ‘Track your progress, plan actions and aim for hand hygiene sustainability’. Healthcare facilities can achieve this through the use of the WHO Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework.
    
This is a tool with which to obtain a situation analysis of hand hygiene promotion and practices within an individual healthcare facility, according to a set of indicators. It also acts as a diagnostic tool, identifying key issues requiring attention and improvement.
    
You can calculate the score of each section and the overall score to identify at what level of progress your facility stands, and evaluate with your infection control committee and hospital administrators which areas need improvement and whether any of these can be targeted with specific approaches (e.g. staff education, preparation of new posters/reminders, etc).
    
In total, the WHO Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework has been downloaded over 33 000 times thus far in support of achieving this call.

Activites
Let’s look at some of the events that took place in hosptials across the country on 5 May.
    
Members of Croydon Health Services Infection Control Team made themselves available to provide information, advice and best practice techniques to staff.
     
Lead nurse for infection control, Sarah Watts, said: “We spent the day promoting the importance of infection control: hand hygiene, our dress code policy and ensured staff had cleaned their hands properly using the ultra-violet light box, which highlights areas on the hands that have been missed.
    
“Patients should feel reassured that our staff know how to clean their hands and the importance of doing this. Importantly patients should remember it’s ok to ask staff if they have cleaned their hands before and after any procedures.”

Raising awareness
Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust (RDaSH) held two public awareness-raising events on 5 May, where health care workers demonstrated how to wash hands effectively.
    
The trust that runs Colchester General Hospital and Essex County Hospital staffed information stands and visited wards and departments to test staff’s hand hygiene and compliance with the organisation’s bare below the elbow policy.
    
The trust’s chief executive, Dr Gordon Coutts said: “There are many measures that the trust takes to prevent infections, such as keeping the hospitals clean, using antibiotics in the right way and treating patients in isolation when it is appropriate to do so. However, the single most effective step that health care staff can be take is to simply wash their hands effectively and before each patient contact.
    
“While the WHO campaign is focused on healthcare workers, there is also a strong public health message here – if we all wash our hands well and regularly, there will be less infection in the community, as well as in hospitals.”

DVD
Staff at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals have produced a DVD stressing the importance of hand washing to show its support for the WHO’s campaign.
    
Chief executive Aidan Kehoe said: “It is really important that everyone in the organisation knows the importance of, and promotes, good hand hygiene to help create a safe environment for our patients. Preventing hospital infections is one of the trust’s key priorities as it is one of the biggest areas of public concern.”
    
The DVD has now been placed on the trust’s official You Tube page.

Masterclasses
NHS Tayside held masterclasses for staff to give them a better understanding of the hand hygiene audit process in relation to capturing the data and using it as a means for improvement.
    
A new alcohol-free hand hygiene station is also being trialled outside the Dining Room on Level 5 at Ninewells. The trial aims to make hand hygiene facilities more accessible and will encourage staff, patients and visitors to use it prior to having any food or drink at this dining room.
    
NHS Tayside hand hygiene coordinator Margaret Kennedy said: “These sessions are bringing together various staff groups to ensure our understanding and practice is robust and particularly is embedded in improvement methodology.
    
“It is through working together in a supportive, constructive manner that we can achieve our best improvements.”

Rugby action
Scarlet’s rugby players Ken Owens, Scott Williams, Gareth Davies and Daniel Newton helped continue the war on bugs by letting everyone know they need to ‘Pass the ball and not the germs!’ at Glangwili Hospital.
    
Ward staff and local pupils from Ysgol Nantgaredig were asked to produce posters to promote hand hygiene with the hospital’s special guests choosing the winning designs. The poster by Gwen Lewis from Nantgaredig School was chosen as the winner for its creativity and winning messages, and was presented with a signed Scarlet shirt.
    
Sharon Evans, lead infection prevention & control nurse for Hywel Dda Health Board, said: “Hand hygiene is an important part of controlling infections in our hospitals. We all have a responsibility to bring down infection rates – it is everybody’s business and we all have a role to play. This includes our staff, patients and visitors to our hospitals.”