Infection control
Hygienic hospitals are vital in keeping our patients, their visitors and staff as safe as possible.
Infections are mostly caused by bugs or germs called bacteria that occur naturally all around us. They also live on our skin, in our mouths and noses.
Whilst most of them don’t do us any harm, when we are unwell or frail due to illness or after an operation, our bodies’ natural defences are weaker, so more care is needed to protect us.
The easiest way to pass on germs is with our hands and through contact with each other, so we ask visitors to follow these basic guidelines:
- Use hand hygiene rub to clean your hands when entering and leaving the wards. The hand hygiene rub kills more than 99% of germs in around 30 seconds and dries naturally on the skin. Hand Hygiene Stations can be found at the entrances to each ward and the rub is also available at the end of patient beds.
- Do not sit on patient beds
- Do not put personal items or sit on clean empty beds
- Do not use patient toilets – there are visitor toilets situated in main reception and outside each ward
Hand Hygiene Video - press play to start