Whittington Health Cleanliness

“Our philosophy is simple - infection control is everyone’s business and maintaining a clean and safe hospital environment is a priority.”

We aim to make Whittington Health as clean and safe as possible for everyone and we want to make sure that we identify patients who come into hospital or our community sites with infections, give them the appropriate treatment, and prevent any other patient getting an infection whilst in our care.

Infection Prevention at the Whittington Video (2:06 minutes)
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Infection Prevention at the Whittington Video (2:06 minutes)
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Healthcare infections include the following:

MRSA – a bacterial infection that generally affects vulnerable patients such as those with open wounds and low immunity. MRSA infections are also found in the community.

Staphylococcus aureus is a common type of bacterium that is commonly found in the nose and on the skin of healthy people. At any one time around a third of us carry Staphylococcus aureus without any ill effects.

Staphylococcus aureus can cause common conditions such as skin infections eg boils. It can occasionally cause other deeper infections and sometimes can cause lung infection (pneumonia), cystitis or, in extreme cases, can spread to the bloodstream. Some patients in hospitals have an increased risk of developing an infection with symptoms because they are unwell and are more vulnerable because they have surgical wounds, intravenous lines etc.

Some types of Staphylococcus aureus have become resistant to antibiotics. One such strain is resistant to methicillin (a type of penicillin) and is therefore known as Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA). MRSA causes exactly the same sorts of infections as other types of Staphylococcus aureus.

Clostridium difficile – a bacterial infection of the gut generally occurring after treatment with antibiotics, causing diarrhoea and bowel inflammation.

Winter vomiting disease/norovirus – a viral infection that causes nausea, sickness and diarrhoea lasting normally from 24 - 60 hours.

VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococcus) – a bacterial infection that mainly affects the urinary tract and wounds but can also affect the bloodstream in very ill patients.

What can you do?

Patients

You should wash your hair and take a bath or shower as usual at home before coming in for surgery.
Ask whether equipment, such as blood pressure machines, have been cleaned between use.
Always wash your hands after going to the toilet and before eating.
Make sure you take the whole course of any antibiotic treatment.
If you have not seen our staff wash their hands before they touch you, please do ask them to do so.

Visitors

Make sure that you wash your hands on the ward or use the alcohol gel before and after visiting a patient in hospital.
There should be no more than two visitors at any time around the bed and any children visiting must be supervised at all times so that they do not touch equipment or dressings.
Please check with the nurse in charge before visiting a patient if you have a medical condition or feel unwell.
Do not sit on the bed.

How to wash your hands guide

How are we doing?

The Whittington has a good record on controlling healthcare associated infections and we subscribe to all the national surveillance schemes, reporting important infections and comparing our rates to those of other NHS hospitals. In 2005, we were pleased to see that the hospital had one of the lowest rates for MRSA bloodstream infections in London.

Whilst we have a dedicated infection control team, we strongly believe that controlling healthcare associated infections is everyone’s business and maintaining a clean and safe hospital environment is a priority for all our staff.

We encourage and promote hand hygiene in staff, patient and visitors by subscribing to the national Clean Your Hands campaign and, in order to reduce further the rate of MRSA and other healthcare associated infections, we are in the process of implementing new national guidance.

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