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Hand sanitising gels - boon or booze?
29 September 2009
James Clark, Managing Director of PHS Direct argues the case for alcohol-free hand sanitising gel (and keeping up the pressure on super-bugs and swine flu).
On 24 September 2009, the BBC reported a strange incidence of alcohol abuse from Dorset. Namely that one of Dorset’s prisons (HMP The Verne, on Portland) had removed its alcohol-based hand sanitiser pumps, originally installed to help combat the spread of swine flu, because an inmate had consumed the contents and got drunk.
This followed, reportedly, in the wake of the Royal Bournemouth Hospital claiming to be one of many hospitals removing their alcohol based hand-cleaning gels from reception areas, in a bid to stop visitors drinking it.
What are we on? (Well, hand sanitiser, apparently!) But what if this rather backward revolt were to become widespread?
For starters, it would bode badly for the very necessary practice of cleaning and sanitising hands to reduce cross-infection, particularly within the closed communities of our institutions, which include schools, hospitals and prisons. The threat of superbugs and swine flu has not conveniently gone away, because one version of one of its most effective counter-weapons has a bad press.
Don’t forget, the Chief Medical Officer has advised that ‘Clean hands are the best defence against the flu pandemic’. Never a truer word...
But, as inmates, patients, students, staff and visitors pass through our various institutions – from one populated zone into the next – it’s not convenient to plumb taps, sinks, soap and towels into all the areas in which they’ll need to ‘de-bug’. They need to equip corridors and other areas with wall-mounted, waterless hand-sanitising stations.
Furthermore, while the summer wave of swine flu failed to knock us all out as severely as expected, our schools (veritable Petri dishes of germ cultivation) have re-opened their doors for the new academic year, and winter and the dreaded flu season are nigh upon us.
In fact, the Government reports that up to 30% of the population could contract swine flu this winter, with up to 12% of the workforce absent at the peak of the outbreak.
So where does that leave us? Do we have to wash our hands in ‘gin’, decommission our precious hand sanitising stations for fear of drunkenness, or is there a viable alternative. The answer (to the viable alternative bit) is yes, yes, YES!
There are actually hand-sanitising products on the market that do not risk pushing you over your weekly alcohol limit. Take NO-GERMS™ for example, which is available from workplace consumables provider PHS Direct.
NO-GERMS is the UK’s best selling alcohol-free hand sanitiser, and it kills 99.9% of all germs, including swine flu, MRSA and E-coli. This highly effective product starts to work within 15 seconds of application and, unlike alcohol-based gels (which only work for the 7 seconds or so it takes for the alcohol to evaporate), NO-GERMS remains effective on the hands for 2-4 hours.
Being alcohol free, it’s extremely suitable for environments where ‘booze based’ gels might otherwise present a problem, including schools, prisons and healthcare establishments. It’s non-flammable, which means you can take it on planes, and gentle moisturisers in the formula make NO-GERMS kind to the skin. Alcohol-based gels (even the ones containing moisturising agents) are so drying remember, and frequent use could exacerbate or trigger skin problems.
So you can see that there’s really no need to panic and rip out your all-important ‘first line of defence’ against swine flu and other nasties. NO-GERMS alcohol-free hand sanitiser provides a reassuringly teetotal solution to the problem of controlling workplace cross-infection, throughout the winter period and beyond. And I’ll drink to that.
Direct