Clean hands for Temple Street

Keeping our hands clean is the single most important way in which we can prevent children who attend Temple Street getting infection.

Today Temple Street is launching a new campaign called CLEAN HANDS FOR TEMPLE STREET to help us reach 90% hand hygiene compliance by the end of the year which will help prevent hospital acquired infection amongst the children we treat and care for in Temple Street and also bring us in line with HSE required standards.

Right across the hospital from today you will begin to see posters and stickers promoting CLEAN HANDS FOR TEMPLE STREET and asking the vital question HAVE YOU WASHED YOUR HANDS?

Please embrace this campaign and make your HANDS always CLEAN FOR TEMPLE STREET. 

Our next hand hygiene audit is the end of October. Let’s get closer to that 90% target.

Other initiatives to drive CLEAN HANDS FOR TEMPLE STREET 

Hand Hygiene Education:

The HSELanD eLearning package for hand hygiene was launched in March 2014 as the new format for the delivery of mandatory hand hygiene education in Temple Street. The online format replaced the group sessions which had traditionally been delivered by Infection Prevention and Control team.

The HSE programme was developed by Infection Prevention and Control experts from the HSE and HPSC and focuses on the ‘5 moments of hand hygiene’ as promoted by the World Health Organisation which also form the basis for the bi-annual national hand hygiene audits undertaken by the Infection Prevention and Control team.

Since January 2014, 65% have completed the online training.

Another new element to the education of staff in hand hygiene was the introduction of Hand Hygiene Trainers in some of the departments around the hospital. Following an Expression of Interest in April of this year fourteen staff members attended a newly developed ‘Train the Trainer’ programme which provided them with advanced education on hand hygiene and also the skills to conduct practical hand hygiene training sessions with their colleagues in their own departments.

We would be delighted to hear from any other staff member interested in undertaking the ‘Train the Trainer’ programme. Please contact for more information

Hand Hygiene Audits:

The hospital participates in the HSE’s national audit of hand hygiene compliance by clinical staff. These audits are carried out twice a year in May and October by the Temple Street infection Prevention & Control team. Seven clinical areas are randomly selected by the HSE to take part in the audit, one of which will always be ICU. The audit measures compliance with the WHO’s 5 moments of hand hygiene by clinical staff during their interaction with staff.

Over the last year two years we have seen a decline in compliance with hand hygiene among clinical staff in the hospital, from 77.6% in October 2012 to 62.4% in May 2014.

The drop in compliance has occurred across all staff groupings and has led to Temple Street to having the lowest reported compliance for hand hygiene in the country.

In an audit of nine clinical areas in July 2014 however, the overall compliance was 73%, which is an increase of 10.6% from the May result. Encouragingly there were improvements in every clinical area and among every staff grouping.

Posters

Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 | 5 Moments | Wallpaper