Deb is partnering with the WHO SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands healthcare campaign

Deb is partnering up with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign day on the 5 May – an initiative that seeks to drive hand hygiene awareness and engagement among healthcare staff in order to sharply reduce the threat of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs).

Healthcare facilities are being encouraged by the WHO to register for the campaign and receive a wide range of resources, including educational posters and videos, webinars, monitoring and feedback tools, self-assessment frameworks and more. From this, supporting healthcare establishments will be able to hold events around their premises in order to reinforce the message on the importance of hand hygiene.

This year the campaign is focused primarily on the risks to surgical patients and the environments which they occupy – from surgical wards and operating theatres to surgical services. This includes the promotion of the hashtag #safesurgicalhands.

In the UK today, the threat of healthcare associated infections is alarming, with approximately 300,000 patients contracting an illness while being treated in in healthcare premises. That accounts for an approximate cost of £1billion to an already-financially-strained NHS, while it has also been revealed that patients are remaining in hospital an extra 3.6 million days a year in the UK due to these infections; meaning healthcare professionals have less time to focus on new admittances.

In the build up to the 5 May, Deb will be working closely with the Handz campaign – founded by MP Andrea Jenkyns to raise awareness on hand hygiene – to promote the Deb 3-step hand hygiene protocol that should be followed by healthcare staff: cleanse, sanitise and restore. This revolves around staff members frequently using hand hygiene products at regular intervals dictated by the WHO Five Moments of Hand Hygiene.

“It is impossible to overstate the importance of the SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign,” said Paul Jakeway, marketing director at Deb Group UK.

“While the 5 May is a one-day event, hand hygiene in healthcare is an issue that must be acknowledged 365 days a year. At Deb, we have long supported the WHO in its efforts to drive hand hygiene compliance in accordance with the WHO Five Moments of Hand Hygiene recommendations, and we are delighted to be continuing that support in 2016.”

Deb is actively involved within many healthcare establishments across the UK, promoting the use of its range of healthcare-specific products that include Cutan Complete – the world’s-first alcohol-based foam hand sanitiser that is proven to be both fully virucidal and bactericidal, and that kills 99.999% of germs – meeting all sanitising needs in one unique solution.