Speaking at a recent Water Management Society conference, Ginny Moore, of Public Health England (PHE), described how the latest thinking, and the results of recent research and experience on minimising the risk of growth and spread of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria in healthcare plumbing systems.
As well as input from a number of leading plumbing product manufacturers, had informed the new guidance in the HTM 04-01 Addendum, ‘Pseudomonas aeruginosa – advice for augmented care units’. The guidance’s publication, in March 2013, followed the death, just over a year earlier, of three young infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Belfast’s Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital (RJMH) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa-related infection, the source subsequently being identified as six handwashbasins.
The one-day conference, Preventing Pseudomonas – some lessons learned, was held at the Tower Suite at Drayton Manor Park near Tamworth. Before Ginny Moore spoke, George McCracken, the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust’s head of estates risk and environment, explained how he and his team addressed the immediate aftermath of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa incidents from an estates engineering standpoint. A full report on his presentation appeared in the January 2014 issue of HEJ.
Ginny Moore, a research scientist at PHE’s Porton Down Biosafety Unit, where the taps from the neonatal unit in Belfast were analysed after being sent there for examination, addressed delegates immediately after George McCracken. A number of the taps were previously examined by the estates team at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.
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