You will have seen a great deal about the use of alcohol hand sanitisers in the NHS as part of the battle to reduce Hospital Aquired Infections.
It's not that straightforward an issue and I'll try and flag up some of the basic principals here.
There's been a rush of new products being sold but care needs to be taken as most them aren't fully effective, they haven't been independently tested and accredited and they can be rough on your hands which discourages proper use.
Here are some pointers.
1. Only used a product that is approved to the european standard EN1500. This is important. These products have been proven to remove all major pathogens in under 30 seconds. If they don't have this standard they probably don't work effectively.
2. Wearing gloves is only partially effective. The reason is that if you have bugs on you hands before you put them on they breed inside the glove. You should sanitise your hands before you put them on.
3. Washing is only partially effective and although you should wash to remove contamination such as blood or dirt even bactericidal hand soap only removes about 65% of bugs. You should, however only use alcohol sanitiser on visibly clean hands as sanitisers aren't designed to clean, only sanitise.
4. Only use alcohol sanitisers that contain skin conditioners as the cheaper ones dry your hands and discourage proper use.
5. Always try and remember to think 'what have I just done and what am I going to do next'? If in any doubt sanitise your hands.
6. Learn how to use the products correctly it's easy to miss bits and you may still have bugs on your hands.
You can email me and I'll send you the proper method.
info@anubishealthcare.com or download the information directly from this link:
http://www.anubishealthcare.com/pdf/handsani.pdf