Sulisti Holmes, Andrew Tweedie, Health Facilities Scotland
Email: sulisti.holmes@nhs.net
The seventh Health Facilities Scotland’s decontamination seminar was held on the 2nd May 2018 at the Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel in Glasgow, Scotland (UK). This event was organised by the Scottish Health Service Centre and Health Facilities Scotland (HFS) which are both within NHS National Services Scotland. The seminar was attended by 130 delegates including the support from 18 exhibitors. The delegates came from a range of professional backgrounds including decontamination managers and production staff, decontamination engineers, infection prevention and control nurses, theatre nurses, microbiologists, clinicians, estate managers, researchers and innovators from higher education and the independent sectors.
The following day, at the same venue, another event presented on a different scope on medical devices and equipment safety, including the 2017 European Medical Devices Regulation.
The objectives of the seminar was to promote best practice and innovation and to facilitate the understanding of the latest update on regulations, policy and guidance; as well as to share lessons learned from research and peer experience.
The event was opened by Tom Steele, the Director of HFS. He welcomed everyone to the seminar and outlined the importance of medical device decontamination with regard to patient safety. This was followed by presentations from a range of well travelled speakers from across European on varied topics in relation to the decontamination of surgical instruments and endoscopes.
Chaired by Sulisti Holmes, Head of Decontamination and Incident Reporting Investigation Centre at HFS, the morning sessions concentrated on the upcoming NHSScotland guidance SHTM 01-01 ‘Decontamination of medical devices in a Central Decontamination Unit (CDU)’. Outwith Scotland, a CDU is more commonly known as the Sterile Services Department or Sterile Supply Department. The SHTM 01-01 series comprises of seven parts: Part A Management, Part B Test equipment/methods, Part C Sterilization by steam, Part D Automated cleaning and disinfection equipment, Part E Sterilization by Hydrogen Peroxide or Ethylene Oxide, Part F Inspect, Assemble and Package and GUID 5017 supplement Guidance for Service Users.
SHTM 01-01: background, scope and development process
Andrew Tweedie, Senior Technical Adviser at HFS presented on SHTM 01-01 covering the background, scope and the development process. The scope of SHTM 01-01 covers the processing of medical devices such as surgical instruments, devices requiring low temperature sterilization (e.g. robotic devices) and single use devices supplied non-sterile that are required to be processed “once” prior to use. Andrew said the existing SHTMs 2010/2030 published 2001 would be replaced and the new regulatory developments over 2017 would be considered in the new guidance. The SHTM 01-01 series was developed through engagement with a working group with input from external contractors and subjected to two national consultations over 2017. Andrew looked into Part A covering quality management, the decontamination process, validation/periodic testing of equipment, regulatory framework and roles & responsibilities, followed by part B outlining the parameters tested and the applications.
David Ingle, Authorising Engineer (Decontamination) at HFS, discussed the content and layout of SHTM 01-01 Part C and D. This included (porous load sterilizers) roles and responsibilities, product families, saturated steam calculations and washer-disinfectors. He mainly discussed the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) guidance on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) that introduced instrument side. David highlighted the improvement through optimisation of washer-disinfector performance, keeping instruments moist prior to return to CDU, sampling and testing of residual protein as a part of protein.
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Read the entire article at STERI WOLRD 04/2018.
Citation of this article:
NHSScotland 2018 Decontamination Seminar. Zentr Steril 2018; 26 (4): 214–217.
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