Skin care specialist, Deb is proud to be partnering with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) ‘SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands’ campaign day on the 5th May, 2016 – an initiative that seeks to drive hand hygiene awareness and engagement amongst healthcare staff in order to sharply reduce the threat of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs).
Healthcare facilities are being encouraged by WHO to register for the campaign and receive a wide range of resources, including educational posters and videos, webinars, monitoring and feedback tools, self-assessment frameworks and more. From this, supporting healthcare establishments will be able to hold events around their premises on the 5th May in order to reinforce the message of the importance of hand hygiene.
This year, the campaign is focused primarily on the risks to surgical patients and the environments which they occupy – from surgical wards and operating theatres to surgical services. This includes the promotion of the hashtag, #safesurgicalhands.
In the UK today, the threat of healthcare associated infections is alarming – NICE, 2011, reported approximately 300,000 patients contracted an illness whilst being treated in healthcare premises. That accounts for an approximate cost of £1 billion to an already financially strained NHS. It has also been revealed that patients are remaining in hospital for an extra 3.6 million days a year in the UK due to these infections; compounding the growing problem of delayed transfers and meaning healthcare professionals have less time to focus on new admittances.
As 5th May approaches, Deb will be working closely with the Handz campaign – founded by MP Andrea Jenkyns to raise awareness on hand hygiene – to promote the Deb 3-step hand hygiene protocol that should be followed by healthcare staff: cleanse, sanitise and restore. This revolves around staff members frequently using hand hygiene products at regular intervals dictated by WHO’s ‘Five Moments of Hand Hygiene’.
“It is impossible to overstate the importance of the SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign,” says Paul Jakeway, Marketing Director at Deb Group UK. “Whilst the 5th May is a one-day event, hand hygiene in healthcare is an issue that must be acknowledged 365 days a year. At Deb, we have long supported the WHO in its efforts to drive hand hygiene compliance in accordance with the ‘WHO Five Moments of Hand Hygiene’ recommendations, and we are delighted to be continuing that support in 2016.”
