Stainless steel furniture is a hallmark of pristine surgical suites, thus raising the bar for what we expect to see in safe, sanitary and advanced medical settings.

The sluice room may appear to have a humble purpose, but in reality, it’s just as critical to patient and clinician safety as the operating theatre and hospital ward.

When human waste disposal is not efficiently managed, patients are put at significant risk; with over 4 million people in Europe developing a healthcare-associated infection (HCAI) every year[1], the battle against bacteria is far from won.

Preventing the spread of dangerous pathogens in potentially ‘dirty’ environments is essential to the success of any infection control strategy. Your sluice room is likely to already benefit from advanced waste disposal machinery, such as pulp macerators and bedpan washer disinfectors; but to truly protect your patients, you need a 360 degree approach, from entry to exit.

When you equip your sluice room with stainless steel fixtures and fittings, you take care of infection control from the ground up.

If you dispose of waste in a macerator or bedpan washer but don’t pay attention to the area that surrounds it, your efforts are likely to be counter-intuitive.

Surfaces that can’t be thoroughly cleaned, despite your clinician’s best efforts, could become the underlying cause of otherwise mysterious HCAI outbreaks in your facility. After all, you no doubt thought you were doing everything right by disposing of waste in an adequate manner and cleaning surfaces as you were trained to do. However, if the wrong material is used for those surfaces, you could be fighting a losing battle; bacteria can thrive through even the smallest missing detail.

Your sluice room needs to eliminate hidden microbe hotspots.

Stainless steel is an extremely difficult material for germs to grow on.

Its smooth surface and clean welds mean that microbes can find very few places to hide; there’s seldom any crevices where germs can become trapped and difficult to remove. Similarly, stainless steel is corrosion-resistant, allowing for strong cleaning agents to be used without consequence.

The quality of the material (and strength of cleaning agent that it can withstand) is denoted by a numbering system.

304 is the standard grade of stainless steel, and appropriate for most medical settings; 316 is a higher quality material, however, which would be used where stronger cleaning agents are required. DDC Dolphin can provide products at this grade on request.

Those responsible for estate management at your facility can have full peace of mind when these fixtures are installed. DDC Dolphin stainless steel furniture products are HTM 64 Compliant and, where appropriate, comply with Health Technical Memoranda (HTM) 63, 64 and Health Building Note (HBN) 00-10.

Whether you’re facilitating a re-fit or a completely new build, stainless steel furniture is readily available for a wealth of sluice room purposes.

Stainless steel sink tops, basins, flotation baths, janitorial units, scrub troughs and slop hoppers are just some of the items available for your sluice room installation.

To complete the smaller (but just as essential) details, a range of stainless steel accessories such as glove dispensers, soap dispensers, disinfection timers and wall racks are also available. There shouldn’t be any need to settle for a lower-quality product, which could put your patients and clinicians at risk as a result.

DDC Dolphin provide a complete kit-out service, so all of your requirements can be dealt with by a single supplier.

This isn’t limited to the purchase of fixtures, fittings and technology.

DDC Dolphin are the only manufacturer of macerators and washer disinfectors in the UK to provide the full range of sluice room solutions, as well as the expert knowledge to guide designers, engineers and estate managers on the flow of work, infection control, access and layout needs of your individual facility.

From stainless steel furniture to lighting and antimicrobial wall coverings, DDC Dolphin can help to ensure that your sluice room is constructed to the exact measure of your requirements, using a breadth of experience covering the needs and challenges of all kinds of medical institutions.

Your sluice room plays a vital role in preventing infection. To ensure it’s up to scratch, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/healthcare-associated-infections-hcai-point-prevalence-survey-england