As NHS Trusts look to achieve further reductions in infection rates, antimicrobial copper touch surfaces are being adopted in many hospitals as an additional infection control measure.
Copper Development Association (CDA) director, ANGELA VESSEY, highlights the benefits.
Compliance with handwashing protocols in hospitals has become a hot topic and, while significant reductions have been achieved in cases of certain healthcareassociated infections – such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile – current figures still show that, within the European Union, over four million patients contract a healthcare-associated infection (HCAI) each year. With these leading to 16 million extra days in hospital, accounting for an estimated 37,000 deaths, and costing the NHS alone over £1 billion annually, it is clear that much remains to be done. In a publication from the Health and Care Infrastructure Research and Innovation Centre, released in February, Redesigning hospital environments can help tackle infection,1 Dr Vanya Gant, divisional clinical director for infection at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Nigel Klein, professor and consultant in paediatric infectious diseases and immunology at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, London, observe: “Improvements in healthcare have led to more patients surviving with increasingly complex conditions. Our hospitals are full of very sick patients who are not only vulnerable to infection, but who may themselves act as potential sources of bacteria harmful to other vulnerable patients.”
New threats emerging
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