Wednesday 5th May 2021 is Global Hand Hygiene Day …

Tim Potter, one of our Learning Coaches specialising in Safety, Health & Environment Apprenticeships, gives us his take on what hand hygiene means.

Over the last year or so hand Hygiene has never had the limelight it has now. It has always been there on posters around the workplace and in public spaces, but did we really take any notice?

The same goes for hand sanitiser, we may have occasionally used it and probably didn’t have any in the workplace or in the house. How things have changed? We have bottles of the stuff everywhere, one in each car, in handbags, in sports bag and on our workstations, its everywhere!

So, we are now in a place that our hand hygiene has never been so good, but could it be better? I totally believe so. We have hand sanitiser in receptions in the workplace, we are all issued hand sanitiser by our employers, its in the toilets, in the canteen and it’s been strategically placed around your workplace.

So, we really have no excuses not to have excellent hand hygiene, but if we are all honest, do we wash our hands and apply hand sanitiser as and when required. Do we know when it’s time to apply! I wash or apply hand sanitiser after I have picked up the post. It’s just one of the many habits I have formed since the outbreak of this virus, but am I doing this at the right time, in my eyes yes, I am. In the great scheme of things, hand washing is so simple, it really is a basic action we can all take to reduce the spread of infection.

Studies have shown that many people regardless of where they live – don’t wash their hands, even after going to the toilet. For those in poverty or with limited facilities, there are additional challenges to keeping hands clean. In most households, people have access to soap and water, but more often than not, it’s the inconvenience of having to wash our hands or just the simple fact the soap is not available for whatever reason.

Does it boil down to the fact that better hand hygiene education is required, do we need a better understand of what drives people to do things that are good for themselves and others?

Do we need more signage? More government communication of washing hands or more advertisements.

My view is that it is out there, we all know that washing our hands and using hand sanitiser will help cut the spread of Covid 19 and any other future infection.

So, is it just the fact that it is a behaviour thing? I believe so, we all have a choice, and we all know the right thing to do is to wash our hands and apply hand sanitiser, but we are human, and we cut corners!

In my eyes it is behaviour.

Do we need to factor into this discussion the surfaces that we are constantly touching? In a previous employment we did and found that on most surfaces the virus would live for potentially 72 hours. We found that copper has properties that break down the virus and kills it within 4 hours. So we covered the most touched areas with copper, this included door handles and stair handrails but also incorporated a regular cleaning rota of the most touched areas and robust communication of washing hands and the use of hand sanitiser. That business stayed Covid free and to my knowledge has not had a single person contract the virus.

But with all this in place, it is still down to the individual, which goes back to behaviour and how do we change that?