2007 Disinfection of instruments legislation

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Dear Members,

I am posting this on behalf of a colleague.
She is considering setting up in private practice later this year. It was considered that she would purchase a little sister 2 autoclave, but another colleague has stipulated that the regs are about to change.

I would welcome your opinions to pass on, esp. those in the private sector.

Kind regards

 

Peter
IMO.
How far should you go trying to meet ever "increasing" standards of sterilisation. In my opinion the increase in cost does not justified by the increase in safety to the patient. The NHS, who are the leaders in paranioa, continualy push for more and more expensive protocols but its not their money they are spending and their customers do not have increased charges because of it. If one reads the research on sterilisation and infection control it will be quickly realised there are more effective ways of controling cross infection than spending another 3 grand on the latest autoclave and sterile water to protect from potential infection from prions which, is an incredibly small risk.
As far as keeping recordings of each cycle of the autoclave use goes its all just eyewash. Nobody ever checks the records except the user (I've got stacks of them clutering up a draw) and even if they did who is to say that you ever put your instruments in the sterilzer.

Paranoia rules in the NHS but it doesn't need to rule you as a private practitioner, if you don't let it.

Cheers Dave Smith

 

Dear Peter,

I dont know what the guidelines are in the UK , but here is a link for the Australian Infection Control Guidelines from the Australian Podiatry Council. Maybe they have a similar online facility in the UK that you could look up?

Also, check exactly how many instrument sets can fit into the steriliser at a time, our new steriliser *supposedly* fits 10 sets, but the technician could only legally validate 6 nail (clippers + file + black's + scalpel handle) sets (or 10 single scalpel handle or beaver handle packets) per cycle, so we can't squash any more than that in each load cycle (steam penetration and drying ability is affected )..
http://www.apodc.com.au/infection/nat_infection_control.pdf

Also you might be interested to look at the Risk Management online education, which makes some valid points about record keeping, infection control and the use of procedures manuals to manage the practice...
http://www.apodc.com.au/online_education.htm

Regards

Donna

PS: Can't believe I am nerding it up on a Wednesday night

 

Peter,

I work privately and in the NHS.

Most NHS depts have now gone across to central sterilisation, which is fine as it's not money out of your pocket.

Privately, I use a basic benchtop steriliser except for nail surgery instruments, which are centrally sterilised.

Legislation is changing and is continuing to change (initially it was thought that vacuum autlocalves would be good enough, but now they're not!) if you look at the info from the society, you'll see that we're being pushed towards central sterilisation. The main reason being tracibility of instruments, which can't be done with autoclaves.

The best advice for your freind is to purchase an inexpensive autoclave and wait until the society forces us one way or the other (which is what I've done). Alternatively it might be best to find out where we stand legally from the society if our instruments aren't traceable and practice defensively.

Hope this helps!

 

....and you just worried about the autoclave

The BBC are reporting:
Inspectors warn over NHS hygiene
Nearly four out of ten NHS staff do not have access to basic hygiene measures needed to combat superbug MRSA, the health inspectorate has warned.

Full story