Hi All!
Welcome to 2023 another New Year and a new look for the CSC Newsletter.
Being mindful of the huge amount of digital media and the various forms of ‘Newsletters’ most will be receiving, we thought that we would try something slightly different. Instead of producing a long summary every six months of past events (which also requires a considerable investment in time to compile and you to read), we thought we would keep it short and sweet giving you the choice to delve in deeper where you want to.
Every month will be a brief number of bullet posts of the latest information from the CSC membership for you to ponder and explore.
The CSC committee would like to extend their thanks and appreciation to you and all our members for your continued support. This monthly bulletin is for you therefore we would love to hear your feedback and any ideas you have for news stories and content going forward (please email Becky our media editor at [email protected] )
CSC Achievements in 2022
In April we held the 60th Anniversary Annual Scientific Meeting a summary of past, present and future topics across the field of ‘decontamination.’ In this post-pandemic era the healthcare environment continues to present an infection risk making environmental decontamination high on the agenda as well as reusable medical devices. Read the Clinical Service Journal (CSJ) write up here. All delegates have access to the recording and that had not registered can still access the recordings for a small fee by simply following this link.
In June former committee member John Prendergast and our current Chair Jimmy Walker established a working group, to whom we are extremely grateful, to review ventilation guidance in endoscope decontamination facilities. Read their article here
October saw the second of our educational events – the Autumn Study Day (ASD) held in Manchester and titled ‘Is Decontamination Sustainable,’ which created much discussion in terms of Climate Change and the challenges ahead.
It was fantastic to see another packed house as speakers from multiple disciplines across the healthcare arena shared their views, experience and knowledge around the hot topics of sustainability, climate change and the circular economy. If you have not already purchased access to the recordings you can access all of them for a small fee by simply following this link.
Knowlex ran an IPC and HFM conference in Scotland during May and CSC committee were invited to speak on managing the risk of water borne infections. You can watch Becky Hill’s (n CSC Media and Website Coordinator) presentation here and many others through the main link above.
Becky represented CSC at a regional IPS meeting in Kirklees invited to speak about environmental cleaning and decontamination within Care Home settings.
And finally in September CSC committee were invited to speak on two occasions at the IPS annual conference in Bournemouth. Jimmy Walker (CSC Chair) presented in the main auditorium on ‘Safe Water in healthcare – why has it all gone wrong…’ and Becky presented in the industry sessions ‘The 3 P’s in Cleaning and Decontamination’ (a new experiment for IPS committee encouraging conference attendees into the exhibition halls.
At all of these meetings we were given table top space to raise awareness of our club and we’d like to thank all those synergistic societies for giving us this opportunity to attract more members.
Thank you to IHEEM (www.iheem.org.uk) and Health Estate Journal (HEJ) (Jonathan Bailey) for supporting the club with their write up of our events and to the HEJ’s sister publication “The Clinical Services Journal” (Louise Frampton) (https://www.clinicalservicesjournal.com/ for picking up the clinically led articles.
What we’re listening to
If you didn’t catch it last year in 2021, Brett Mitchell, Phil Russo and Martin Kiernan launched their podcast ‘Infection Control Matters’ (this is on “Spotify” but you can also hear it on all the other platforms). These podcasts have been inspired by all the queries that arose from the world’s management of the pandemic and in recognition that Infection Prevention and Control requires a multi-disciplined approach. What we particularly like about this podcast series are the interviews and subsequent discussions that they have undertaken covering decontamination of air, surfaces, equipment and skin, providing links to the published papers so you can read more. It also brings in the human element touching us with their humorous personalities.
If you have recommendations for a good listen please share with us. You’re your podcast suggestions to [email protected]
What we’re organising for 2023
April 3rd and 4th will see our Annual Scientific Meeting being held at the Crowne Plaza Newcastle Upon Tyne.
We have a packed two day programme which will be kicked off with the Kelsey Lecture being given by Dr Joost Hopman, Clinical Microbiologist and medical Director of Radboud University Medical Centre in Netherlands. He will be sharing his experiences from the front line of how “Sterilisation and Decontamination is managed in low resource countries”.
Flowing nicely into the following themes being covered across the 2 day event:
Our Debate speakers this year will be Sharon Fox and Andrew Bent who will present on “ This house believes that manufacturer’s instructions are restrictive and detrimental to instrument reprocessing”
HIBS’s investigation relating to the decontamination of surgical instruments – Neil Alexander from the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch reports on an investigation of a near miss event where ‘black stuff’ was seen coming out of the end of an irrigation channel!
Human factors: How people bring uncertainty to any system – Dr Elaine Cloutman-Green aka Girly Micro will be sharing her experiences of working in healthcare and the challenges of maintaining a healthy balance to work and life.
Mobile endoscope decontamination units – We’ll be hearing about some of the challenges and concerns about the design and clinical aspects from Helen Griffiths, Jim Tinsdeall and John Prendergast
Dental Decontamination – this will be a revisit of the hot topics in dental decontamination as we hear from across the four nations (Andrew Smith, David Coleman, Alice Miller, IIona Johnson and Ian Mills) on the challenges of balancing IPC and instrument decontamination and the pressures faced on the front line today.
If you haven’t booked your place already be sure to BOOK NOW as we do have a limited number of places and hotel rooms. If you are unable to be with us in person we will be streaming the event live so you can also purchase tickets for this option.
Or simply click the logo to take you to where you can buy your ticket options.
Expressions of interest for Corporate members speaking slots are now closed. Thank you to those who have applied, our treasurer Mike Bowden will be in touch shortly.
We are aware that some delegates have faced some challenges when you have tried to book for the event. We apologise for any inconvenience as these are completely out of our control. The two most common payments failures issues are as follows:
- The card payment is not being authenticated and therefore declined. We have checked this at our end and would ask that before contacting us that you ensure the card you are using is in date and belongs to you. The card companies now send out a onetime code (OTC) as a second stage authentication. If the card doesn’t belong to you the owner of the card will be getting the notifications required to continue with the process and if you are not in the same location with the card holder then you will not be able to process the payment.
- Some members when purchasing tickets or membership for the first time from the new website are asked to login and make payment from their login in page and when they do the system appears to loop back to requesting they log in again. The solution we have been given for this one is to i) if you are using your work browser (which may have firewalls and hence may prevent access) then please try to use a private browser or ii) clear the cookie cache on your browser (old cookies from the previous website cause a conflict)
We apologies for the inconvenience and frustration this may have caused. Please bear with us while the new website gets re-established. If neither of the above is working then contact Mike ([email protected] ) or Becky ([email protected] ).
What quote we’re pondering
Whilst this quote is not specifically about healthcare and decontamination, ‘washing the dishes’ could easily be translated to ‘washing the RMD’…we particularly like the final sentence.
“So, we have a paradox where washing the dishes one time is seemingly unimportant. But washing them 10,000 times (consistently, everyday) is important because that repetition ensures that we always have plates and silverware at our disposal. But we can’t wash the dishes 10,000 times unless we start by washing them once. A single action done correctly and repeatedly makes all the difference in our lives.”
- Alex Kakuyo, Perfectly Ordinary: Buddhist teachings for Everyday Life
What other events are upcoming
Arab health 2023 – Dubai World Trade Centre, 30th Jan – 2nd Feb 2023
DECON UK 2023 – Hilton Birmingham Metropole, 18th April 2023
Infection Prevention and Control 2023 – National Conference Centre, Birmingham, 25th -26th April 2023
British Infection Association, Pendulum Hotel and Manchester Conference Centre, 16th – 17th May 2023
Federation of Sterilizing research and Advisory Councils of Australia (FSRACA) National Conference, Centrepiece at Melbourne Par, Victoria Australia, 9th – 11th August 2023
WFHSS Congress 2023, Brussels, 17th-20th October 2023
The Committee would like to Thank You – Our Members for your support. Without you this club would not be as successful and thriving as it is. We always welcome more members so please feel free to share our News and help us gain new members.
As this Monthly bulletin is for You we would welcome any suggestions for content and any questions you would like answering that would aid continuous education – please let Becky have your ideas via email at [email protected]
Remember to BOOK your tickets for the Annual Scientific Meeting as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. We look forward to seeing you all in April.
Have a wonderful month.
The CSC Committee
