The hospital laundry is often a weak point in terms of infection control, providing multiple opportunities for cross contamination of linens and the exposure of staff to dangerous pathogens through bodily fluids. In this article, we will look at the ways in which migrating to soluble laundry bags from reusable bags can strengthen infection control in your hospital.
The question of how best to handle and process contaminated linen is a key concern for any infection control strategy in hospitals. A laundry bag has to securely contain items soiled by blood, bodily fluids, and known pathogens, while minimising exposure risks for your hospital staff. Unlike conventional reusable laundry bags, soluble laundry bags reduce the need to manually handle contaminated items. Staff can place the entire bag directly into the washing machine, where it dissolves during the wash cycle, carrying out the dual function of containment and disinfection. Moreover, Slik-Pak laundry bags are engineered to be sturdy during transit and storage, holding your items safely without the risk of leaks, spills, and tears, improving infection control at each stage.
Efficient waste and laundry categorisation is vital for preventing cross contamination in hospitals. Essentially, laundry staff have to be able to distinguish between high risk and lower risk items when processing laundry – at a glance. The easiest way to do this is to implement a colour-coded system with your soluble laundry bags that clearly distinguishes between different types of waste and linens, e.g. clean, soiled, or biohazardous materials. To help you, we offer our dissolvable laundry bags in a range of colours, making it easy for your teams to identify, sort, and handle linens with the appropriate care.
Your hospital staff are your key assets in improving infection control protocols. Slik-Pak’s water-soluble laundry bags make the training process straightforward and user-friendly. By reducing the need for the manual handling of contaminated materials, our bags enhance your hospital safety protocols and protect staff from unnecessary exposure to pathogens and other infectious agents. All bags are supplied with clear usage instructions to reduce your training needs, and to help your team use their tools effectively.
One of the standout features of our water-soluble laundry bags is their dissolvable, colour-coded seams. These allow the bag and its contents to be loaded directly into the washing machine without being opened. The seams will securely hold your linens in place until they are exposed to hot water (60°C+), at which point they automatically dissolve so that the linens can be sterilised in the machine. This feature greatly reduces the infection risk during loading and unloading and minimises direct contact between your staff and contaminated laundry.
Our water-soluble laundry bags are designed to meet all the safety and hygiene standards applicable to NHS hospitals, including the HSE’s Control of Substances Hazardous to Health regulations (COSHH) and the NHS Infection Prevention & Control Guidance framework. To find out more about how our solutions can improve infection control processes at your hospital, please contact one of our team today by clicking here.
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