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Infection Prevention and Control
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)
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Laundry Management
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Laundry Management Purpose To ensure that all staff understand the importance of safe laundry management in preventing the transmission of infection . To enable staff to know how to safely manage laundry in order to maintain service user, staff and visitor safety.
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Target Group All care staff including bank, agency and other visiting staff.
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All staff should receive training in laundry management and should inform the care manager if unable to undertake the same, whether due to physical problems or environmental factors within the care facility. Introduction
Effective management of linen is an essential component of standard infection prevention and control precautions and must be carried out carefully to minimise the potential for the transmission of infection.
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When managing linen staff should remember the importance of undertaking effective hand hygiene as most healthcare associated infections are spread by direct contact via health care workers hands; hence hand decontamination is the most important procedure in preventing cross infection in hospital. Personal protective equipment (PPE) required for laundry management
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Personal protective equipment, such as gloves and plastic aprons provide a barrier between microorganisms on hands or clothing and the laundry item and vice versa. Disposable gloves must be worn when handling linen if there is a risk of exposure to:   
blood body fluids secretions or excretions
Gloves should never be washed or alcohol gel applied as this may compromise the integrity of the gloves. Plastic disposable aprons should be worn when there is a risk of spillage/splashing/soiling of clothing. Plastic disposable aprons should be worn for the purposes of bed making. Before PPE is donned and after it is removed hands should be routinely decontaminated. Client: Start date: End date: 2 of 7 - Laundry Management
General principles of Linen management:
Management of used linen
Linen should disposed of into an appropriately coloured disposal bag; these may be made of fabric or plastic but should be colour coded
To enable fouled/infected linen to be easily identified and to be handled appropriately To reduce physical contact with foul/infectious linen
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Red linen bags should be used for the disposal of infectious/fouled linen
Rationale
Linen should be disposed of at the bedside in the case of bedding or at the point of care for service user’s clothing. This reduces the risk of environmental contamination by linen To ensure proper segregation of linenand to prevent handling of fouled/infected linen
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Action
Segregation of linen should be undertaken at the point of care
Fouled or infectious linen should be placed inside a water soluble bag before placing inside a red linen bag
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Non-fouled/non-infectious linen ie lightly To enable easy identification of linen soiled/wet or used linen should be disposed and to promote proper handling of in a white linen bag Linen bags should not be overfilled Overfilling renders bags heavy and difficult to manage; overfilled bags can be liable to splitting; overfilled bags pose moving and handling risks to staff Linen bags should be sealed and tagged To aid traceability in the event of an with details of the source eg facility name; incident in relation to linen post-code or individual unit name within facility To ensure that linen is returned to original source Handling of used linen should be kept to a To reduce the risk of contamination minimum Where clean linen is brought into a service users personal area and not required, it cannot be returned to the linen store and should be returned as used linen
To reduce the risk of contamination of clean linen
Care should be taken to ensure that no extraneous items such as dressings, eye glasses or sharps are disposed of when changing bed linen
To reduce the risk of loss of service users property or injury to laundry staff from sharps
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Bibliography Damani, N., (2012) ‘Manual of Infection Prevention and Control’. Oxford University Press. Oxford Loveday, HP, Wilson JA, Pratt RJ et al. (2014) epic3: National Evidence Based Guidelines for Preventing Healthcare- Associated Infections in NHS Hospitals in England. Journal of Hospital Infection Volume 86 Supplement1 (S1-S70)
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National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2012) Infection: Prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections in primary and community care. NICE clinical guideline (CG139) London: NICE
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DH (2013) Choice Framework for Local Policy and Procedures 01-04 Decontamination of Linen for Health and Social Care: Guidance for Linen Processors Implementing BS EN 14065
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