Building a bridge between the worlds of cleaning, infection prevention and care
- 22 Dec, 2022
Stopping or spreading infection
If they do their work properly, cleaners can break the infection cycle of viruses, bacteria and other pathogens. "If an environment isn't hygienically clean, a microorganism can spread and cause new infections via materials or surfaces. It is crucial to prevent this by breaking the infection cycle. In this respect cleaners play a very important role."
However, it is also important that cleaners do their work accurately and properly because otherwise there is a chance that they will actually spread pathogens, rather than removing them, for example if they rush to polish a doorknob with a cloth they have just used in another patient's room. At first glance this may appear to be an innocuous action, but it can have disastrous consequences. It is a question of awareness and knowledge. As Charlotte adds, "Generally speaking cleaners really do pull out all the stops. But even if they have the best of intentions, if they don't do their job properly they can actually help to spread microorganisms. A great deal is expected of them and they have to be given the right tools. Unfortunately I often find out that they will have done a course some years ago, without this being followed up ever since, despite it being so important that cleaners have the right level of knowledge to enable them to do their work properly."
Cooperation with care providers
Cleaners and cleaning companies are not the only ones that need to take responsibility for environmental hygiene in care institutions. "For example, care providers and those actually involved in care activities also have an important role to play in maintaining hygiene standards. Although the environment might be clean, if someone providing care goes from one client to another without washing their hands, they'll still be spreading microorganisms", Nicole explains. "I also sometimes notice that the communication between cleaners and care staff is not up to scratch. As a result cleaners aren't always aware of what's going on within the department. It's important, of course, that they know about certain things, for example if there has been an outbreak somewhere."
Charlotte echoes that sentiment. "When on site I always ask both the cleaners and the care staff plenty of questions, for example who is responsible for cleaning the patient lifts and for cleaning the inside of the wardrobes? All too often both sides then start pointing fingers at each other, with the consequence being that neither job gets done."
Combining knowledge
In short, the cooperation between cleaning and care can be improved, as can the cooperation with infection prevention, the two of them explain. "On the one hand we can learn a great deal from the knowledge cleaning companies have with regard to the various cleaning methods, resources and materials. And on the other hand the companies could be more open to infection prevention theories", Charlotte clarifies. "It would be great if, for example, we could combine our know-how in order to find the best cleaning methods. We could also collaborate in the field of training to avoid a situation in which staff learn one way of doing things from one party and then suddenly have to do things completely differently later on. It actually takes twice as long to unlearn behaviour than to adopt it."