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Sluice rooms
Sluice rooms
End of the yellow
bag road
When it comes to planning and designing new hospital and
healthcare facilities, the sluice room is almost certainly not
the most attractive proposition, but it is nevertheless a very
important one as the safe disposal of potentially infectious
waste is a serious procedure that has to be carefully thought
through and equally carefully implemented
The link between infection control
and cleanliness has never been so
well understood as it is today and
the importance of sluice rooms in
hospitals and other healthcare
facilities is no longer in doubt.
Given this knowledge and the
widespread availability of
specialist equipment
including bedpan
washers/disinfectors
and medical
macerators, JLA’s
Medical Product
Manager, Paul Farrell,
believes the excuses
for NHS bodies to stay
in the ‘comfort zone’ of
bagged disposal are
running out.
“Hospitals can now be
completely free of
potentially infectious
waste within minutes which begs the question
‘why continue with a risky
process that involves
collecting and carrying
waste before storing it in
your hospital for hours
every day?’” Farrell says.
“Yellow bagging obviously
brings with it a risk of
spillage and cross
contamination, but there’s a
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March/April 2014 | HefmA Pulse
massive bureaucracy hangover too.
Even when the waste is long gone,
departments still have to store
licensing documents and audit trails
to prove the waste has been
managed appropriately.”
Research carried out by JLA
towards the end of 2012
ahead of the launch of its
JLA Medical division which was set up to
serve the care home
sector as well as
hospitals - revealed that
28% of all residential,
nursing and specialist
care homes relied on
hand-washing for
reusable bedpans and
commode pots even
though the Department of
Health recommends that
nursing homes have a
mechanical process in
place for the disposable of
such waste. The study also
revealed that large care
homes spend, on average,
between £5,000 and
£10,000 a year on yellow
bag collections. Using a
macerator as part of a
modern sluice room facility
could save them between 25
and 40%.
Planning a sluice room
A well-designed and equipped sluice
room is an essential tool in the
control of infection in any modern
care environment. If not disposed of
hygienically human waste poses a
significant threat of infection,
particularly to patients who are more
vulnerable to infection as a result of
their lowered immune system. It isn’t
just a question of following
procedures. It is equally important
that the sluice room is carefully
planned and well equipped.
For over 50 years Stanbridge has
been a leader in infection control
equipment and has produced a guide
to planning a sluice room. “Ideally a
sluice room should be planned at the
outset, just like the kitchen and the
laundry,” says Stanbridge. “The
number of sluice rooms will depend
on the number of floors and the
layout of the building.”
Stanbridge offers the following
‘top tips’:
1.Take into consideration the
functions and services required,
including hot and cold water
inlets, power supplies and
voltages, soil outlets and vents,
floor and wall finishes and
adequate ventilation.
2.Remember that a sluice room can
be used 24 hours a day, so
choose a site where noise from
water or clattering hardware is not
a problem.
3.Wherever possible divide the room
into ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ areas to
avoid cross contamination. A
stainless steel trolley or worktop
should be provided to
accommodate used, soiled items
prior to washing and this ‘dirty’
area should be separate to the
‘clean’ area where washed items
may be stored.
4.Dedicated hand washing facilities
are essential.
Single use or reusable?
There is a place for both, and
whichever the preferred route
equipment is available to ensure the
waste is handled efficiently, correctly
and with the minimum risk of
infection to vulnerable humans.
Medical macerators completely
destroy single use pulp items,
bedpans, pads, nappies and toilet
paper and ‘pulverise’ the waste into
fine, easily flushable particles. As a
result no solid or ‘blockage-risk’
waste enters the sewer system and
hospitals and care homes can rest
assured that they are meeting their
duty of care obligations to operate in
an eco-efficient manner.
“The benefits of disposable
bedpan macerators vastly outweigh
those of reusable bedpan washers,
which is why they are installed in over
85% of UK hospitals and are
increasingly becoming the preferred
bedpan handling method across the
globe,” says Nick Dale, Sales
Manager of Haigh Engineering, which
this year celebrates 50 years in
healthcare. It is also 50 years since
the very first Sluicemaster macerator
came off the production line for
installation in one of the UK’s leading
hospitals. “The infection cycle is
broken - a clean bedpan is used
every time and sage disposal of the
used one ensures there is no way of
infection spreading.”
Macerators may also bring
significant energy and water savings.
Haigh reports its macerators use
50% less energy per cycle than
alternative macerators and 90% less
energy per cycle than washing
systems. They use only cold water
Haigh’s macerator can now be fitted with Pro-Control
and no additional chemicals and, with
lower lifetime costs, they require less
maintenance. “Half a century later
and the Sluicemaster range is still
regarded as one of the most reliable,
efficient and high performance
macerators available to the UK
healthcare industry,” says Dale.
Opting for a single use system
with a medical macerator may bring
other advantages as well. “Time
saving is a big advantage,” continues
Dale. “There is no scrubbing,
re-washing or uploading required,
operation is simple and fast, which
results in more time for patient care,
less time required for installation and
less disruption during downtime,
maintenance and servicing.”
But what about sites that feel
installing medical macerators and
going down the single use route is not
for them? Manual cleaning of reusable
utensils increases the risk of cross
infection as items may not be
completely clean when stored
afterwards. In addition, the handlingemptying-cleaning process itself can
be time consuming and staff will touch
surfaces and even ward end kitchen
“Even when
the waste is
long gone,
departments
still have to
store licensing
documents
and audit
trails to prove
the waste has
been managed
appropriately”
utensils after prolonged exposure to
potentially infectious waste.
Mechanical bedpan washers/
disinfectors with hands-free opening
and thermal disinfection cycles
ensure hassle-free decontamination
in a matter of minutes, leaving staff
and nurses with more time to spend
on core patient care.
Products
Ongoing product development at
Haigh Engineering combines
feedback from customers with its
commitment to sustainability, cost
efficiency and reliability to continue to
drive technical enhancements
throughout its range. Examples
include the hands-free auto-start
function, reduced energy
consumption, cold water only feeds
and small product footprints. Haigh’s
latest innovation is the introduction of
‘Pro-Control’ that works with its
single use system macerators. The
Pro-Control card ensures authorised
personnel only are able to activate
the bedpan macerators. Easy to use,
staff simply swipe the Pro-Control
card over the sensor on the
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23
Sluice rooms
“Ideally a
sluice room
should be
planned at
the outset,
just like the
kitchen and
the laundry”
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Sluice rooms
macerator to enable operation.
Following successful trials, Haigh is
now taking its first orders for SOLO
fitted with Pro-Control. “This is
another example of how Haigh leads
the way with macerator technology,”
says Dale. “Effectively breaking the
infection cycle, our product and
system solutions are regarded by
many as one of the key lines of
defence against Healthcare Acquired
Infections. The very nature of the
system, combined with our patented
Bugban technology, directly attacks
the cycle of infection, which is why
the single use approach is becoming
increasingly popular.”
The Cyclone range of macerators
from JLA Medical includes the Pulp
unit for pulp waste disposal and the
Inco for incontinence and sanitary
waste disposal. The Cyclone Inco
benefits from infrared operation simply moving the hand over the
sensor opens the lid. After the waste
is inserted the lid is closed and the
handle locked down which
automatically starts the process. This
minimises cross infection, user error,
overloading and unpleasant odours
if items are left in the machine
between cycles. The Pulp unit utilises
powerful Cyclone technology to
process disposable bedpans and
other medical pulp items in less than
a minute.
JLA Medical has also developed a
range of bedpan washer disinfectors
designed to make it easier for
healthcare establishments to achieve
high levels of hygiene and protect
March/April 2014 | HefmA Pulse
staff, residents and patients against
cross infection. The design of the
range takes into consideration the
issues that different establishments
face with different occupancy levels
and varying degrees of dependency
on commodes. The Jet Range
machines from JLA Medical reach
83oC for 60 seconds to ensure
thermal disinfection. The flexible
design allows multiple utensils to be
processed simultaneously and the
machines also deliver cost, staff and
energy efficiencies. Other features
include simple one-touch start and
compact top loading with hassle-free
foot pedal operation.
The wide range of equipment
available from Stanbridge includes
stainless steel sluice units, deep
clean sinks, taps, drainers, work
surfaces, shelves, hand wash basins,
easy clean utensils and sophisticated
automatic washer/disinfectors for
commode buckets, bedpans, urinals
and various bowls/utensils. The new
generation of machines can carry out
the functions of both slop hopper and
washer/disinfector. Machines open
with a pneumatic foot pedal to give
the operator full hand control of the
receptacle to be placed within. A cold
wash removes the soil and a hot
wash removes extra stubborn waste
before items are disinfected. The
minimum requirement is 80oC for 60
seconds: Stanbridge machines
usually reach 90oC for 70 seconds. A
cold rinse follows to cool the
receptacle. Interlocks prevent
opening during the cycle.
“Operation
is simple and
fast, which
results in
more time
for patient
care, less time
required for
installation
and less
disruption
during
downtime,
maintenance
and servicing”
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