Middlemore staff caught dirty handed by survey

62 per cent of staff complied with hand washing regulations. Photo / Thinkstock

More than a third of health workers fail to clean their hands every time they should, a snapshot of 10 wards at Middlemore Hospital indicates.

Senior staff have been questioned by the Counties Manukau District Health Board over an apparent fall in hand hygiene at the hospital.

The target is 100 per cent compliance.

Hand hygiene is critical to reducing the rate of hospital infections, especially those involving super-bugs resistant to multiple antibiotics. In addition to hand-basins, soap and paper towels, pump bottles of hand gel are mounted in numerous places around Middlemore Hospital to make it easy to comply with guidelines.

While not scientific, the snapshot found 62 per cent of staff complied.

In December 2009, in line with national and international safety schemes, the board introduced a campaign communicating to staff that they must thoroughly clean their hands before and after touching a patient, before and after any healthcare procedure and after touching a patient's immediate surroundings.

The average compliance of three wards in September 2009, before the campaign, was 71 per cent. However, it was 45 per cent before a pilot programme began in the three wards.

The clinical director of the board's quality improvement unit, Dr Mary Seddon, told board members in a memo last month that hand hygiene "was now sitting at 73 per cent, having previously been at 77 per cent".

"The latest hand hygiene compliance is 62 per cent reported on the safety boards of 10 wards out of a possible 22," says the memo, contained in board meeting papers.

"This rate is collected by the nursing staff themselves, to help them take ownership of the problem locally, and should be seen as a guide, not a statistically robust measurement."

Dr Seddon last night emphasised the 62 per cent finding's unreliability and said results of a proper audit were being collated and analysed at present.

The board papers also state that an 11-month outbreak of the super-bug ESBL in ward 33 has ended.

ESBL - extended spectrum beta lactamase-producing bacteria - is resistant to a range of antibiotics.

In affected people, ESBL is usually carried harmlessly in the bowel and doesn't need to be treated, but if it crosses into the bloodstream it can cause a serious infection and sometimes death.