We launder 40,000 sheets a day - it's where the magic happens
Imagine washing drying and ironing 40,000 bedsheets a day. Some blood-stained, others highly infectious.
A dedicated team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust’s in-house laundry service does just that.
“Staff on the wards open their linen cupboards in the morning and – like magic – it’s full,” said Alex Simonyi, Linen and Laundry Manager.
“We collect the linen, disinfect, wash, dry, and iron, and deliver to wards across QMC and City Hospital. It doesn’t matter how soiled it is, with blood or other bodily fluids, or if it's infected, we'll deal with it.”
The door to the unremarkable-looking Laundry Services building opens to reveal a precision-driven powerhouse, staffed by a small, purposeful army of workers.
NUH is one of only a handful of NHS Trusts in the country with an in-house laundry service.
“We launder bay curtains, window curtains, sheets, pillowcases, blankets, gowns, scrubs, hospital pyjamas, baby-shawls and baby blankets, towels, even mops.
“Most Trusts use disposable mops but it’s better for the environment to wash them, and it’s also better cost-wise. We do between 6,000 and 10,000 mops a day – washed, disinfected, dried, and sent back out. We launder pretty much everything.
“In our busiest week we've done more than 175,000 pieces in five days – plus the mops.”
NUH’s in-house service proved invaluable during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Trusts with in-house laundries could cope with the high turnover – and some private companies couldn’t.
“Because we were on site, our Infection Prevention Control (IPC) team were a tremendous help and very early on put in place some very robust measures, brought in PPE, introduced new policies, etc, and reassured our staff that it was safe to continue working.
“We ran throughout COVID. Obviously some colleagues caught COVID – for a number of reasons - but no one passed away.
“Some of the measures introduced then we have retained. For example, linen from infectious areas is bagged up into red alginate bags. These high-density, translucent red bags mean staff do not have to handle contaminated laundry. The entire sealed bag is put in the washing machine, where it dissolves in the wash, making the linen safe for staff to handle.
“My team were settled, they really knew what they were doing, it was business as usual as far as it could be in those circumstances.
“Now, we don't have anywhere near as many red bags as we did during COVID, when entire wards would be closed off due to infection. But we do still get spikes. People think COVID has gone. It hasn’t.”
The pandemic meant the Trust realised what an asset it was having an in-house laundry service, with Donna Jones, Head of Facilities, recognising that the Trust needed to invest in new equipment – some of it had been installed in the early 70s. “It is difficult to justify spending £1.5m on a new washer when you could be revamping wards, or buying more beds, for example,” said Alex. “But Donna recognised how important it was.”
“Our purpose-built healthcare washer has all kinds of features to ensure infection control. We have two washers, and they do a 2.5-minute cycle with 50 kg of laundry. So every 2.5 minutes, we get 100kg of clean washing.
“We disinfect everything and test weekly - the barrels, the cages, the vehicles, staff hands; the industry standard is monthly but we do it weekly.”
The service has just received its Risk Analysis and Bio-contamination Control (RABC) accreditation for the third year – the gold standard of infection control in laundries – and BS EN14065, which indicates that the service has a system in place to control microbiological contamination in laundered textiles.
“And it is fantastic that our staff have had real buy-in with the changes. People were open-minded and understood right away the need for change.
“They understand who the end-user is - the vulnerable patients, people with compromised immune systems, newborn babies, etc. Every one of us will have had a family member or friend in hospital at some point, relying on the bedding, the towels, theatre scrubs being clean – it’s a vital service.
“One of my proudest moments was when my son Milan was born 8 months ago. He was wrapped in a little wrap, and a baby blanket – he was new and vulnerable – and I knew the linen keeping him warm was spotless – thanks to my team.”