Laundry Management SOP

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Infection Prevention and Control

Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Laundry Management Purpose

To ensure that all staff understand the importance of safe laundry management in preventing the transmission of infection. To enable staff to know how to safely manage laundry in order to maintain service user, staff and visitor safety.

Target Group

All care staff involved in laundry management including bank, agency and other visiting staff.

Introduction

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Effective management of linen is an essential component of standard infection prevention and control precautions and must be carried out carefully to minimise the potential for the transmission of infection.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) required for laundry management Personal protective equipment, such as gloves and plastic aprons provide a barrier between microorganisms on hands or clothing and the laundry item and vice versa.

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Disposable gloves must be worn when handling linen if there is a risk of exposure to:   

blood body fluids secretions or excretions

Gloves should never be washed or alcohol gel applied as this may compromise the integrity of the gloves. Plastic disposable aprons should be worn when there is a risk of spillage/splashing/soiling of clothing.

Plastic disposable aprons should be worn for the purposes of bed making.

Before PPE is donned and after it is removed hands should be routinely decontaminated.

Categories of linen: Category Used linen Infectious/fouled linen Heat-labile linen

Client Name Start Date: 00/00/0000 End Date: 11/11/1111 1 of 6 - Laundry Management

Description comprises general non-infectious/ noncontaminated linen comprises linen which may be contaminated with blood/body fluids/excretions or secretions usually personal items which may be damaged by high temperatures; service users own clothing may be included

Patient clothing being managed outside of the facility by family for example: 1. Items should be bagged and labelled prior to return to family 2. Soiled items should not be sluiced manually. It may be necessary to discuss the contents with family prior to their taking soiled/fouled linen home, as they may wish for items to be disposed of or to be managed by the in-house laundry (if available) 3. Where laundry is taken home by families they should be provided with written information on how to safely handle these items e.g. factsheet In-house management of laundry:

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1. In-house laundry processes must be consistent with the standards required by the regulator (CQC/RQIA) see Bibliography 2. As a minimum, industrial washing machines should be used which have a sluice cycle, prewash, wash and rinse cycle 3. The machine should be capable of maintaining temperatures of 65°Celsius for not less than ten minutes or preferably at 71° Celsius for not less than three minutes 4. Machines should be serviced at the recommended service intervals 5. Documentation of servicing should be retained

Client Name Start Date: 00/00/0000 End Date: 11/11/1111 4 of 6 - Laundry Management

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