The fundamental role laundry plays in upholding infection control

By Nicky Whittaker, National Account Manager at Miele Professional

Nicky Whittaker has over 15 years’ experience in the commercial laundry sector and specialises in the Care & Social Housing sector. In this article, she examines the impact of laundry on infection control in care homes.

In the continuous fight against infections and outbreaks in care and residential homes, each day presents a new challenge. With people constantly coming and going, from healthcare professionals such as doctors and nurses to family members or friends of residents, the risk of introducing new infections in care settings remains high. This means that strict infection control measures must be put in place to protect residents with compromised or weak immune systems.

All healthcare settings, including care and residential homes, are legally required to implement the Code of Practice established under the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The Code of Practice outlines standards designed to protect patients and residents from infection. Therefore, ensuring your care home is as hygienically clean as possible is essential for creating a safe environment for residents, staff, and visitors alike. However, when it comes to upholding infection control, one area that is often overlooked or underestimated is the laundry.

What role does laundry play in infection control?

Laundry services play an integral role in the daily operations and routines of care homes. In the morning, fresh towels must be ready for residents after a shower, and clean, ironed clothes should be hung up in the wardrobe, ready for when residents get dressed. Once residents go to breakfast, staff will replace any dirty linens and bedding in their bedrooms. Even in the dining room, laundry is present in the form of tablecloths, meaning that maintaining a consistent supply of clean textiles is essential. Although laundry services may seem insignificant, they are crucial for maintaining residents’ quality of life and hygiene, helping them feel comfortable and safe with soft, cozy, and freshly laundered items.

In communal environments such as care homes, where residents and staff interact with one another on a daily basis, pathogens have the ability to spread quickly and can lead to potential outbreaks if infection control measures are not followed correctly. So, when it comes time to wash dirty items, staff must follow correct procedures to ensure infection control is upheld, as contaminated textiles can harbour pathogens such as COVID-19, Norovirus, and Influenza. If laundry is not properly reprocessed, infections can be easily transmitted, posing a significant risk to residents’ health.

How can you reduce the risk of infection in laundry processes?

Reducing the risk of infection in care homes should begin long before reaching the laundry room. Staff need a comprehensive understanding of how infection spreads, how to control it, and what precautions to take. Should infection reach the laundry room, here are some key practices staff must follow.

• Management of laundry: When handling dirty laundry, staff should be provided with and wear the correct PPE (personal protective equipment), such as gloves and aprons. Any soiled or contaminated items must be placed into red soluble bags and stored separately from clean items to prevent cross-contamination.
• Washing infectious and dirty laundry: Red soluble bags must be placed directly into the washing machine and washed separately from other items. For care homes looking to uphold hygiene compliance, only commercial laundry machines offer the high temperatures and disinfection cycles necessary to effectively eliminate pathogens. Additionally, avoid overloading the washing machine to ensure that the water can effectively flush away the dirt.
• Policy and guidance: The requirements for reducing infections in laundry are outlined in the Department of Health’s Health Technical Memorandum 01-04: Decontamination of Linen for Health and Social Care. Disinfection cycles involve holding the laundry at higher temperatures than usual cycles, specifically 65°C for a minimum of 10 minutes or 71°C for a minimum of 3 minutes. However, these cycles should not be used for clothing and other materials that could be damaged by high temperatures (like delicate fabrics such as silk and lace).

With laundry services required around the clock, it is common for other staff members, such as carers, to take over laundry duties during night shifts to ensure that fresh textiles, including clothing, bedding, and towels, are ready for the morning. This means that all staff in care homes need to have a complete understanding of infection control and how it can be maintained through laundry processes. For the best possible understanding of infection control, care homes need to provide staff with up-to-date training and education.

How can you support the training of your staff?

For care home managers seeking exceptional training programmes for their staff, external providers offer significant advantages. For example, external training often provides specialised knowledge and expertise that might not be available from in-house staff. External training programmes are also designed to meet industry standards and regulatory requirements, helping care homes stay compliant with the DoH’s Health Technical Memorandum 01-04.

At Miele Professional, we have launched free online training designed to guide care home staff through the fundamental aspects of infection prevention and control in the care home environment. Accredited by the Infection Prevention Society, the training covers key areas such as preventing the spread of infection, the most common types of infections encountered in care homes, and infection control in the laundry room. The training will be hosted through Microsoft SharePoint, and users can access it by simply providing their name and email address. Upon completing the training, staff will be able to take a quiz to test their knowledge and download a certificate as evidence of their learning, providing peace of mind to residents and visitors that staff are well-trained in maintaining high standards of infection control and hygiene.

To complete our free training for infection prevention and control in care environments please register here.