2023 laundry & bedding catalogue rev 2 - Flipbook - Page 34
Safe Management of Laundry & Linen
3.10 Standard Precautions – Management of Laundry and Linen
Every facility should have a policy on how to manage linen that includes collection, transport and
storage of linen on-site. In addition, facilities should have a policy for how to manage service users’
personal laundry.
Clean Linen : Linen washed/dried and ready to be re-issued to the service
Used Linen : All used linen not contaminated by blood or body fluids
Infectious Linen : All linen used by a person known, or suspected to be, infectious. This includes linen
that is contaminated with blood or other body fluids, e.g. faeces, blood, vomit, urine
3.10.2 Handling Used or Infectious Linen
• Used linen should be handled carefully, to avoid dispersing skin scales into the environment or onto
staff clothing.
• Appropriate PPE should be used when handling used linen
• Infectious linen must be placed directly into an alginate stitched bag or water soluble bag at the
location of use for example in the service users room/at the bedside.
• Colour coded laundry bags may be used (see below)
• Used linen such as sheets must be laundered using a validated temperature disinfection stage, either
within an industrial laundry facility or using a temperature validated semi-industrial washing machine.
• Hand hygiene should be performed after handling used linen
• Used linen must not be rinsed or sorted in service user care areas or washed in domestic washing
machines*
• Infectious linen or clothing should never be manually rinsed as this may cause splashing and
contaminate
the care worker/environment. This includes not soaking infectious linen, for example in basins of water.
* Some community health & social care is provided in small community household units with a small
number of service users, for example low support homes in mental health services. It is accepted that
these settings are essentially fully social care, with an ethos of promotion of normal life skills and
activities of daily living as part of the therapeutic care of the service users. For that reason there may
not be a service level agreement in place for laundry services. In these settings it is appropriate to
undertake laundry as is normal in a domestic household.
The only exception to this is if an outbreak or an incident of infectious disease occurs (e.g. colonisation,
based on IPC risk assessment).
Local IPC teams will support IPC risk assessment in these situations (contact details in Appendix 1).
3.10.3 Storage of Linen
Clean linen should be stored in a designated cupboard or room that is only used for the purpose of
storing linen. Under no circumstances should clean linen be stored beside used linen.
If using linen trolleys in a care facility ensure the trolley is maintained and cleaned regularly. Clean
linen should be kept in its plastic wrapping until it is brought to point of use.
3.10.4 Used Linen/Laundry Bag Colour Coded System
Used linen should be placed directly into a laundry skip beside the bed/point of use. Used linen should
never be carried in arms, thrown on floors etc.
Colour coded systems may be helpful to support staff to segregate used linen from infectious linen.
The laundry company may determine the colour coding to be followed. However, in general:
Red Laundry Bag Infectious linen
White laundry Bag Used Linen
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