Packed House for 4th Annual Oxoid Infection Control Seminar

http://www.rapidmicrobiology.com/news/603h252.php
Oxoid recently hosted the 4th Oxoid Infection Control Seminar Day in the UK. This annual event, which is provided free of charge to microbiologists, laboratory staff and infection control professionals from around the UK, was attended by over 100 delegates who gathered to hear the latest thinking and current opinion on infection control concerns and practices. The morning seminar session started with a presentation by Dr Tom Lewis, Specialist Registrar at Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham, who spoke on the subject of "Cleaning and Setting Standards for Cleanliness". Dr Lewis opened his presentation by commenting that patients now cite fear of hospital-acquired infection as a major cause of concern and that staff morale is often low...
Dr Lewis spoke of the many challenges associated with visual and microbiological assessments, and went on to describe how cleaning protocols can improve outcomes...Conclusions showed that bad cleaning may be worse than no cleaning (ie the organism may actually be spread rather than removed) and that visual inspection does not predict the level of environmental contamination, but that it is possible to devise simple and effective cleaning regimes that will reduce rates of hospital-acquired infection.