NHS Trust urges employers to sign up to hand washing campaign

June 2009

The NHS in Hull and East Yorkshire is among the best in the country at tackling healthcare-associated infections. Now it is calling on local employers to help tackle the problem of infections and viruses within the workplace.

Last month the local NHS launched "Give Soap A Chance" – a campaign to encourage more people to wash their hands properly and more frequently. Since then there have been hand-washing demonstrations in the city’s shopping centres and hundreds of people have been made aware of how important hand-washing is for preventing bugs and infections from being transmitted.

Mike Lister, Hull New Theatre Manager, said:

"We are all aware of how quickly colds and flu can spread in the workplace but perhaps we take for granted the fact that a simple thing like washing your hands well can put a stop to that.

Hull New Theatre is happy to sign up to Give Soap A Chance because this is such a simple measure that really can make a difference to how smoothly a business runs. We all need to wash our hands more often and if this reminds us all to do that then it can only be a good thing."

Last year there were 84 confirmed cases of Norovirus in Hull and 79 in the East Riding. There were also 24 outbreaks of diarrhoea and vomiting in Hull, with 325 people laid low. In the UK an estimated 32.9-million working days are lost each year through stomach bugs, flu and simple infections.

By signing up to Give Soap A Chance, employers will be helping themselves to cut down on illnesses within their workplaces, by simply encouraging their employees to wash their hands regularly and properly.

Research shows that up to half of men and a quarter of women fail to wash their hands after going to the toilet, even 'though up to 10 billion bacteria are present between a person's fingertip and elbow, with the number of germs doubling after using the bathroom.

Good hand hygiene is regarded as the single most cost-effective way of tackling infections spread by unclean hands. These include food poisoning and diarrhoea, viruses such as colds and flu, and more serious conditions such as MRSA.

The NHS has joined forces with the local authorities to get this message home, and is now urging employers to spread the word. Eileen Henderson, Assistant to Medical Director, at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, said:

"Aside from the obvious benefits associated with cutting down on lost days due to illness, companies who join this campaign will share in the publicity associated with it free of charge.

"They will also receive a business pack including leaflets, posters to put up around the workplace, stickers for the mirrors in the toilets, a handwashing DVD and a certificate for public display highlighting their endorsement of the campaign.

"We really hope that employers will get involved in this simple, but very important issue."