Temperature in Decon Room

Q.I wonder if anyone can help – some of our nurses are complaining about the temperature in the decontamination room at work.  It reached 28 degrees yesterday.  HTM0105 guidance suggests that best practice means no fans or open windows or air conditioning.  I wonder how other practices get around this issue.

A.I believe you can have air con or a fan as long as the air flow is in a 'dirty to clean' flow direction or even avoids that area at all.  We had an air con unit in our sterilisation area which was positioned in a way that the air flow was not going against the dirty to clean work flow and we never had any problems from our CQC or infection control advisors check.

A.I spoke to a Health and Safety at Peninsula Law Firm this morning and he said that although best practice (from an infection control point of view) would state no air conditioning, doors and windows closed and no fans, the risk is very minimal and the far greater risk is to staff working in the room.  The advice I was given was to fit air conditioning but ensure it was well maintained, all records were kept and it was serviced annually.  Having looked at HTM0105 I believe that the advice Natasha has given above, further makes this the best option.

A.We do have the window open but have had a special mesh fitted so nothing can get into the room, and we do have a fan in there.

A.We have experienced the same problem over the last few weeks…we have a dedicated Decon Technician who is currently covering some maternity too and therefore in for 5 full days, servicing 6 surgeries. It has not been pleasant for her.  

We had a guy service all our air con units last week and so we asked his advice. There is a type of unit that is compliant, and he has promised to send me more info. He did mention that it was extremely expensive though, for what would probably just be used during a couple of months per year. I will forward more info when I have it.

A.We had special air con installed by ‘ACRS of Evesham’ when we refitted our long, thin-shaped decon room – it inputs clean cool air at the ‘clean’ end of the room and takes it out at the ‘dirty’ end, via circular ceiling fittings (look like ceiling lights). There is a huge aircon system that had to be installed in the roof space above! I don’t know if it would be classed as best practice, but the dental company doing the re-fit (Promec Ltd) recommended it.

July 2015