Stephanie Allchurch, Product Development manager at Altecnic, discusses the importance of ‘getting it right’ when it comes to water system-related products and procedures in healthcare settings.
Particularly to protect vulnerable patients against waterborne microrganisms such as Legionella and the illnesses they cause.
While we hope that the worst days of the coronavirus pandemic are behind us, during the toughest of times, healthcare estates across the UK have often had to perform beyond their designed capacity since the start of the pandemic. Now, more than ever, we all understand the need for reliable, safe, and flexible spaces for the NHS to perform at its best
For healthcare estates and facilities managers, HTM 04-01: Safe water in healthcare premises, is a fundamental piece of technical guidance that must be adhered to when working with the wider Operations teams to adapt dormant spaces to be safe to accommodate vulnerable patients. In particular, HTM 04-01 part C – Pseudomonas aeruginosa – advice for augmented care units, describes how ‘hospital water is a recognised potential source of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is a microorganism that can act as an opportunistic pathogen and colonise and infect vulnerable patients’. It adds: ‘Several outbreaks of P. aeruginosa have been attributed to contaminated water systems in hospitals.’
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