Figures show that every year around 834,000¹ people acquire a preventable infection whilst in hospital and at least 12.5%² of patients admitted for non-COVID-19 conditions are suspected of contracting the disease while in hospital in England.
Following its recently announced partnership with the Infection Prevention Society (IPS) and Tork to introduce a new Environment, Cleaning and Decontamination (ECD) programme supporting infection prevention practitioners tackle the spread of healthcare infections, Sodexo is now launching Protecta, an improved, evidence-based infection prevention approach for hospitals – a proposition that goes beyond simply ensuring surfaces are visibly clean.
Protecta brings together highly trained frontline teams, best in class range of cleaning solutions relevant to infection risk, with a focus on outcomes.
Now more than ever with the added pressure put on the NHS as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic hospital infection prevention teams are working hard to prevent healthcare acquired infections (HCAIs) which lead to delayed discharges and increased costs.
Encapsulating technologies, processes and training, Protecta will promote and support the adoption of best practices in cleaning and decontamination, helping hospitals fight against HCAIs and meet the new National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness. All processes, solutions and cleaning frequencies will be aligned to each hospital’s risk categories.
Lauren Kyle, head of cleaning for Sodexo UK & Ireland, said: “Sodexo is passionate about helping to prevent HCAIs and achieving positive patient outcomes through training, continual innovation and correct procedures to create efficiencies in patient care and wellbeing.
“Providing a clean and safe environment for patients and staff and improving everyday outcomes has never been more important. The pandemic has raised awareness of the critical role cleaning professionals have in helping to keep healthcare settings safe and clean. The introduction of Protecta further supports this through a consistent outcome focussed cleaning service which uses clinical science and experience to deploy relevant products and practices appropriate to each healthcare setting”.
In the USA the Protecta programme has been proven to reduce C.diff by 53% and MRSA by 70% and eliminate COVID-19 from surfaces.
Simon Lilley, Healthcare Director of Strategy & Marketing, Sodexo UK & Ireland, said: “We understand that HCAIs have a direct impact not only on patient flow, but also patient experience. Going forward we will be working with our acute provider partners to focus on improving outcomes for patients. Protecta is one example of our intention to work with science and data, to implement the right solutions for each area of a hospital based on risk of infection.
“The product range will be constantly developing as a result of relationships we have with the world’s leading suppliers, our expert partners in the UK, the Infection Prevention Society, plus best practice sharing and innovation from Sodexo infection prevention teams globally each and every day.”
A wide range of equipment and technologies will come as standard with Sodexo’s Protecta range which has been selected as being best for purpose for the infection risk of each hospital environment. Investment is also being made into a new Protecta Training Academy which will provide industry leading specialist infection prevention training and development pathway for Sodexo’s frontline teams.
Centres of Excellence hospital sites will also be created to work on trialling new cleaning solutions and their impact, 
these sites will have the opportunity to deploy some of the most advanced technologies available.
Protecta+ offers hospitals an even more advanced set of market-leading equipment solutions, including HPV and UV-C decontamination and Robotic technology.
References
1 Source: Guest JF, Keating T, Gould D , et al; Modelling the annual NHS costs and outcomes attributable to healthcare associated infections in England; BMJ Open 2020; 10: e033367. doi10.1136/bmjopen2019 033367
2 Carter et al. (2020) Nosocomial COVID-19 infection: examining the risk of mortality. Journal of Hospital Infection. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhin.2020.07.013
