Prevent Infection and Save Money With Improved Management Of Sluice Room Consumables
The UK’s healthcare sector spends more than £400 million per year on energy – but a significant proportion of this is wasted.[1]
Tackling the issue is a big challenge. However, the implementation of relatively small, cost-saving actions can save money on a local level.
Switching off energy-consuming equipment when not in use, as well as considering energy-saving alternatives when planning major refurbishments, can help to cap the spend that is lost through inefficiency.
In addition, ensuring that machinery is well-maintained can prevent your budget from being squeezed unnecessarily.
Sluice room equipment should dispose of waste, not create it.
Essential to any hospital’s infection control strategy, sluice rooms contain machinery which safely disposes of human waste – without exposing patients or clinicians to dangerous HCAIs, such as Clostridium difficile.
Bedpan washer disinfectors and pulp macerators are designed to be hygienic, but like all capital equipment, you must take appropriate care of these assets for them to continue to work as they should.
Limescale inhibitors and disinfectants are essential to both prevent downtime and prevent infection outbreaks. Without these chemicals, your machines will fall foul of limescale build-ups and bacterial growth – both of which will drain your financial resources, as well as putting those in your care at risk.
1mm of limescale can increase the energy usage of a washer disinfector by 11%.
When you consider how many bedpans your facility must sanitise each day, that’s a considerable amount more energy and money wasted.
By treating your sluice room machinery with the correct chemicals, you can prevent the limescale which causes excessive energy usage – as well as ensuring comprehensive infection control. Limescale can, when left untreated, inhibit a washer disinfector’s ability to reach the required temperature for thermal disinfection. As a result, bedpans won’t be completely sanitised and the spread of HCAIs will become an inherent risk.
Outbreaks of infection will hit your budget, reputation and conscience.
When an infection spreads in your facility, the additional expense required to control the outbreak is significant – HCAIs are estimated to cost the NHS approximately £1 billion a year[2].
Investments in infection prevention, therefore, make good economic sense.
When your bedpan macerators aren’t dosed with suitable chemicals, bacteria can grow within their chambers – but this is entirely preventable. Disinfectants will keep macerators sanitary, but you need to consider the product being used – an economy solution will require a bigger dose during each cycle, and therefore more frequent purchasing. Some facilities even run the risk of not using any chemicals at all – putting their equipment, and therefore patients, at even greater risk.
DDC Dolphin’s 360° Chemical offering will prevent your sluice room from generating unnecessary expense, as well as improving its performance.
When using EcoCleanse+ for Pulp Macerators and EcoWash+ for bedpan washers, you can be confident that your hospital is doing its best to prevent infection and spend budgets responsibly.
Delivered at a schedule to suit your specific usage and storage needs, the 360° Chemical service will ensure that your wards are fully equipped with the appropriate macerator disinfectant and bedpan washer scale inhibitor; without paying for unnecessary excess products or wasting spend on inferior quality.
When supported by 360° Chemical, your bedpan washers and macerators will perform at their optimum; preventing outbreaks of HCAIs, whilst maximising uptime and streamlining energy efficiency.
As a result, your facility will save money; engineer callouts are less frequent, utility costs are reduced and, most critically, infections are prevented.
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