The Great Debate subject this year was, “This house believes that manufacturer’s instructions are restrictive and detrimental to instrument reprocessing”
Moderated by David Jenkins – Committee Member (Medical Microbiologist)
Dr David Jenkins has been a consultant medical microbiologist and lead infection prevention doctor at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust since 1997. He is also the lead doctor for antimicrobials in the Trust. He provides clinical microbiology support for Glenfield Hospital, helping with the management of infection in cardiology, cardiac, thoracic and vascular surgery patients including patients on intensive care in the extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation unit. In addition, David is an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Leicester where he is involved in teaching medical and other health science students.
David has held a number of national roles over recent years, including being an elected member of the Council of the Royal College of Pathologists, where he is also the immediate past-chair of the Medical Microbiology and Virology Specialty Advisory Committee. He has also served on the councils of the Healthcare Infection Society and the Central Sterilising Club. He is the current President-Elect of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. He takes over full presidential duties in March 2021.
David has contributed to a number of national guidelines and co-authored research papers on infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship. He has also been in an invited speaker at conferences in Europe, Asia, North and South America.
For the motion was Sharon Fox
Sharon Fox has taken a leading role in the Delivery, Contractual and Financial Management of Decontamination Services for both Private and NHS Healthcare providers.
Sharon is currently The Head of Decontamination which covers the Third party ‘Sterile service’ contract and Central Decontamination service for UHB, managing sterile services provision for over 80 theatres and has developed the QEHB Central decontamination unit to achieve BSI Accreditation in 2017 along with successfully opening a new the development CEDU Heartlands Treatment Centre 2023, newly refurbished CEDU at SOLIHULL 2021.
Sharon has recently taken over the role as Director of Finance for the IDSc and is a passionate and a strong supporter of continued staff training and development.
Against the motion was Richard Bancroft
Richard Bancroft is the Science and Technical Director for STERIS.
Richard has over 35 years’ experience in decontamination of medical devices and is a IHEEM Registered Authorising Engineer (Decontamination).
He has a BSc (Hons) in Applied Chemistry, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB) and has been granted 6 patents.
He has leadership roles with BSI, CEN and ISO and is Chairman of ISO/TC 198.
He has been actively involved in development of international standards for over 30 years.
