Patients are told to ask nurses: have you washed?

Patients are told to ask nurses: have you washed?
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor
(Filed: 16/05/2004)


Nurses are to suffer the ultimate indignity of having their personal hygiene questioned by patients.

A new campaign against the hospital superbug MRSA, to be launched in the summer, is to target hospital staff who fail to wash their hands often enough.

Nurses and other staff who come into contact with patients are to be issued with badges urging patients to ask them if they have cleaned their hands before treating them.

Posters will be displayed in wards to reinforce the message, while alcohol hand wipes, said to be more efficient than soap and water, will be attached to hospital beds.

The "clean your hands" campaign, which was piloted in six NHS trusts last year, has been prompted by public concern over the number of infections caused by MRSA and other bugs.

The Department of Health believes that these cost the NHS about £1 billion a year and contribute to the death of 5,000 patients annually. Up to a third of these infections are preventable, ministers believe.

John Reid, the Health Secretary, said: "These are the kind of practical measures that we want to see. Some of the ways of tackling this are not rocket science.

"Sometimes it is the old-fashioned way of doing things, like cleaning your hands properly."

Tim Yeo, the shadow health and education secretary, critised the idea, however, branding it as a gimmick.

"This is treating the symptoms and not the cause - and doing so in what seems like a trivial way. It looks as though the minister is trying to wash his hands of the whole issue.

"What is needed is not this cosmetic scheme but giving senior nurses on each ward the power to sign off whether the cleaning has been done properly, and for contractors not to be paid until it has.

"So many patients are expressing concerns about infection rates. It's becoming a scandal. Many people will be asking why this is being treated in such a superficial and gimmicky way."

Officially, ministers are claiming that a "rigorous evaluation" of the pilot scheme is still being carried out, although they admit that they are convinced the scheme has succeeded in bringing down infection rates.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned, however, that the campaign will be extended to all NHS hospitals with an announcement expected in the summer.

Details of the plan emerged just days after the Royal College of Nursing's annual conference heard that a new generation of young nurses was becoming "too posh to wash" their patients.

Jeremy Bore, a general nurse working at Exeter Prison, told the conference that a "significant minority" of younger members of the profession said that they did not want to do "basic holistic care", including washing patients' feet and bottoms.

Mr Bore added: "I think this is very disturbing. If I become too posh to wash I shouldn't be in the profession."

Geraldine Cunningham, the director of the RCN's clinical leadership programme, said that the new Government drive raised some concerns about potential conflicts with patients.

She added: "How does a patient deal with a staff member who becomes defensive after being asked if they have washed their hands?"

Ruth Law, the lead nurse for infection control at St George's hospital in Tooting, south London, one of the six trusts to pilot the project, was enthusiastic, however.

She said of the seven-month trial in two wards at St George's: "Senior staff were very keen to get involved and this trickled down to the juniors. We had posters up everywhere, and badges, some of which kept falling off, but I don't think there was any negative feedback.

"Some of what we had was quite gimmicky. There were plastic aprons with slogans on, and mugs. People liked the novelty of it."

MRSA, or methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, is a superbug that has spread rapidly, alarming doctors because so few antibiotics are effective in treating it. In 1992, there were only 114 recorded cases in England and Wales. By 2003, this had risen to 5,561.

Patients with weakened immune systems are particularly vulnerable. Scientists believe that the most basic of measures, including staff washing their hands before treating patients, would go a long way towards preventing the spread of infection. The bug tends to enter the body through a cut or a wound.

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