Warning issued over hospital hygiene measures
Friday 30th January 2009
A note of caution has been sounded concerning new powers to encourage hygiene in Scottish hospitals.
The Scottish government recently introduced rules under which hospital workers who fail to wash their hands on repeated occasions can be sacked.
According to a spokesperson for health secretary Nicola Sturgeon, the regulations are reflective of the administration's "zero tolerance" approach to non-compliance on cleanliness issues.
However, nursing body RCN Scotland has said that disciplinary action against its members for failing to wash their hands should be used only as a last resort.
Issuing a cautios welcome to the rules, director of the organisation Theresa Fyffe said: "Disciplinary action should be a last resort and should only ever be considered once all measures to enable staff to meet hand hygiene requirements are put in place by health boards."
She added that incidents of hospital-acquired infections were "rarely" the responsibility of an individual member of staff.
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