When we talk to our care home customers about the biggest challenges that they face in their laundry, we repeatedly hear that they struggle to effectively remove stains and eliminate unpleasant odours from residents’ clothing and linen.
This can raise many issues including:
- Non compliance with CQC – CQC Guidance Regulation 15 states that all equipment needs to be visibly clean and free from odours that are offensive and unpleasant, using appropriate cleaning agents
- Inadequate infection prevention – In the Health and Social Care Act 2008 Code of Practice Prevention and Control of Infection in Care Homes guidance on linen and laundry social care professionals need to procure and deliver a level of linen decontamination that service-users have a right to expect. Linen provided and used by care providers:
- Should look clean
- Should not be damaged or discoloured
- Complaints from relatives – no one wants to see their loved ones clothing stained and not smelling pleasant
- Frustrated and demotivated staff – feeling they’re not doing a good job because they can’t get linen clean
- Unnecessary Increased costs – rewashing laundry equals extra costs and the need to reinvest in additional linen
Delicate fabrics and high energy bills mean that many care homes wash laundry at lower temperatures, while this can help reduce the cost of energy, not all temperatures kill germs and typically generic destaining products are not effective at removing stains at temperatures less than 50 degrees centigrade, so there is the risk of bacteria and other germs surviving or being passed from one item of clothing to another and also that linen won’t be physically clean.
Did you know that here at Hcsuk, we offer a FREE and unique Laundry Audit to evaluate exactly how efficiently your care home laundry is operating including an accurate calculation of exactly how much each wash cycle is costing you.
Our resident laundry expert, Ken, who has over 20 years experience working in care home laundries will spend time with your laundry staff to understand the challenges they face and provide advice and solutions to help you to improve your systems.
You will then receive a written proposal detailing our findings, recommendations and equivalent cost per wash comparison for your consideration.
Laundry Audit Case Study
When we completed our FREE LAUNDRY AUDIT at a local 88 bed care home, we learnt from their laundry manager that she was having to dispose of 6 bed sheets every week due to being unable to effectively remove staining – that equated to wastage of over 300 sheets every year and their bedding costs in excess of £3,000.
The laundry chemicals they were using were low in cost, heavily diluted and they were using higher than necessary volumes of product to compensate for poor cleaning performance.
As an experiment, we asked for one of the sheets she had written off and ran it through her machine, working at a similar temp and wash cycle that she would normally use, utilising our Crystalbrite Low Temperature Antibacterial Destainer, an effective oxygen-based low temperature liquid destainer, which removes stains even at temperatures as low as 20ºC, and Kills 99.999% germs in 5 minutes at 20oC.
The results were amazing! After the sheet going through 2 wash cycles, the stains were completely removed and the sheet, looking like new, was able to go back into service.
This enabled the home to save valuable resources on the replacement of sheets, improve the physical and hygienic cleaning results of their laundry, and improve infection prevention, a real WIN WIN!
Fast forward 3 years and the laundry manager tells us she would not be without her Low Temp Destain, she describes it as the ‘best laundry product she has ever had!’
This care home has since been rated ‘Outstanding’ with CQC.
When was the last time you evaluated the overall efficiency of your laundry?
How could you benefit from some free advice from a care sector laundry specialist with over 20 years experience?
Our *FREE LAUNDRY AUDIT has been successful in many care homes and has helped them to:
- SAVE money
- IMPROVE cleaning results
- INCREASE staff motivation
- REDUCE complaints
- INCREASE compliance
Why not book your FREE, no obligation, LAUNDRY AUDIT today by emailing lucylynch@hcsuk.co.uk or calling her on her mobile 07968 994660.
*Terms and conditions apply