The Principles of Medical Device Decontamination

Sustainability and Green Issues

Decontaminating reusable medical devices represents a significantly resource- intensive process, generating an estimated carbon footprint of 189 grams of CO 2 equivalent per individual instrument and 1,531 grams per surgical instrument set 11 . In excess of 2 million surgical instrument procedures are undertaken in the UK every year, resulting in a significant carbon footprint and financial cost. Whilst this is mostly an unavoidable result of a process that safeguards patient safety and ensures the prevention of infection from one patient to another, it is nevertheless an area that has the potential to be improved.

Due to the nature of the work and the processes required to render a reusable surgical instrument safe for reuse, the medical device decontamination sector will continue to be a hotspot and a resource-intensive speciality.

Each UK nation 12-15 has an NHS strategic delivery plan working towards zero carbon with key targets for the next decade. All NHS Trust and Health Boards also have an action plan in achieving the ambitions of these strategies and the decontamination lead needs to work with their appointed ‘decarbonisation programme manager’ to set goals for reducing carbon emissions in these services. There are practical steps that can be taken to reduce the carbon footprint by optimising the efficiency of processes 16, 17, 18 , looking at energy sources and reviewing waste streams. This coupled with upstream and downstream processes (such as device manufacture, distribution, reuse and waste) will help to minimise the environmental impact of reusable medical devices. In particular considerations should be given to the following:

• Water and chemical usage • Utilities use (electricity, gas,steam) • Use of packaging • Waste streams

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