Putting a finger on hand hygiene

Professor of Medical Microbiology, Mark Wilcox, points the way to good hand hygiene

If you asked most people who Graham Ayliffe was, it’s likely you’d be greeted with blank expressions. He is not a household name sadly, but the technique that bears his name is currently helping fight the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe. Since it was published in the 1960s, it is hard to say how many lives it has saved, but Ayliffe’s six-point handwashing technique, which was quickly adopted by hospitals, and endorsed by the WHO in 2009, has possibly saved hundreds of thousands of lives and has the power to save many more.

Along with his colleagues – J.R Babb and A.H Quoraishi at the Hospital Infection Research Laboratory (HIRL) at City Hospital in Birmingham (UK) – Ayliffe developed the six-point technique when it was clear that particular parts of the hands were being missed, mainly the thumbs and the fingertips. Since then, hand hygiene in healthcare settings has continued to evolve. Due in part to the advancement of alcohol gels, hand hygiene in hospitals is now unrecognisable to 10 years ago, let alone 60 years ago when the six-point handwashing technique was devised. However, despite these great leaps in hand hygiene, hands and especially the fingertips still frequently get missed and often remain an infection transmission risk in hospitals. Outside of hospitals, where day-to-day handwashing is less frequent and effective, fingertips are an even bigger transmission risk of infection.

Without getting too scientific, essentially two main types of bacteria are present on hands; resident flora, which exist under the outer layer of skin, and transient flora which reside on the surface of the skin.

Transient flora are more amenable to removal by handwashing and hand hygiene. However, your hands, particularly your fingertips, are only ever as clean as the items/surfaces you touched last. In hospitals, the surfaces that healthcare workers touch, like doors, are weak links in the chain of infection prevention.

I knew and greatly admired Graham Ayliffe; as a medical microbiologist, I particularly like the simplicity of the Ayliffe technique in helping to avoid the spread of microbes and so strengthening the chain of infection prevention. In a similar vein, Surfaceskins continues this tradition by adding a very simple opportunity to further strengthen infection prevention. To paraphrase an old TV advertisement, Surfaceskins does exactly what it says on the pad!

The Surfaceskins door pads, and handles, have been designed to prevent contamination of clean hands upon touching sites that are associated with a high risk of transmission of microbes. The technology in the pads is incredibly well engineered to enable the alcohol gel they contain to travel one way (from pad to hands). The problem they are solving is very simple; hands and fingertips stay clean when they touch a surface which otherwise could be contaminated. The Surfaceskins pads are an adjunct to hand hygiene rather than a substitute for hand washing or use of alcohol gels/liquids; hence, an added level of protection against infection transmission.

Coronavirus has alerted us all to the importance of handwashing. Graham Ayliffe’s work on how we should do this simple act

If you asked most people who Graham Ayliffe was, it’s likely you’d be greeted with blank expressions. He is not a household name sadly, but the technique that bears his name is currently helping fight the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe. Since it was published in the 1960s, it is hard to say how many lives it has saved, but Ayliffe’s six-point handwashing technique, which was quickly adopted by hospitals, and endorsed by the WHO in 2009, has possibly saved hundreds of thousands of lives and has the power to save many more.

Along with his colleagues – J.R Babb and A.H Quoraishi at the Hospital Infection Research Laboratory (HIRL) at City Hospital in Birmingham (UK) – Ayliffe developed the six-point technique when it was clear that particular parts of the hands were being missed, mainly the thumbs and the fingertips. Since then, hand hygiene in healthcare settings has continued to evolve. Due in part to the advancement of alcohol gels, hand hygiene in hospitals is now unrecognisable to 10 years ago, let alone 60 years ago when the six-point handwashing technique was devised. However, despite these great leaps in hand hygiene, hands and especially the fingertips still frequently get missed and often remain an infection transmission risk in hospitals. Outside of hospitals, where day-to-day handwashing is less frequent and effective, fingertips are an even bigger transmission risk of infection.

Without getting too scientific, essentially two main types of bacteria are present on hands; resident flora, which exist under the outer layer of skin, and transient flora which reside on the surface of the skin.

Transient flora are more amenable to removal by handwashing and hand hygiene. However, your hands, particularly your fingertips, are only ever as clean as the items/surfaces you touched last. In hospitals, the surfaces that healthcare workers touch, like doors, are weak links in the chain of infection prevention.

I knew and greatly admired Graham Ayliffe; as a medical microbiologist, I particularly like the simplicity of the Ayliffe technique in helping to avoid the spread of microbes and so strengthening the chain of infection prevention. In a similar vein, Surfaceskins continues this tradition by adding a very simple opportunity to further strengthen infection prevention. To paraphrase an old TV advertisement, Surfaceskins does exactly what it says on the pad!

The Surfaceskins door pads, and handles, have been designed to prevent contamination of clean hands upon touching sites that are associated with a high risk of transmission of microbes. The technology in the pads is incredibly well engineered to enable the alcohol gel they contain to travel one way (from pad to hands). The problem they are solving is very simple; hands and fingertips stay clean when they touch a surface which otherwise could be contaminated. The Surfaceskins pads are an adjunct to hand hygiene rather than a substitute for hand washing or use of alcohol gels/liquids; hence, an added level of protection against infection transmission.

Coronavirus has alerted us all to the importance of handwashing. Graham Ayliffe’s work on how we should do this simple act to prevent disease has never been more important. I am sure Prof. Ayliffe would be proud to know that the importance of optimal hand hygiene is deserving the attention it so urgently requires.

prevent disease has never been more important. I am sure Prof. Ayliffe would be proud to know that the importance of optimal hand hygiene is deserving the attention it so urgently requires.