Keeping hand hygiene high on the patient safety agenda

The World Health Organization’s annual global hand hygiene day is on 5 May (www.who.int/gpsc/5may/en). The day offers participating hospitals tools to improve hand hygiene and supports WHO’s first global patient safety challenge, launched in 2005 to reduce the global burden of healthcare associated infection through sustained improvements in hand hygiene. By 5 May last year, 130 countries had registered with WHO’s “save lives: clean your hands” initiative (www.who.int/gpsc/5may/background/en). This year the number is 170. WHO’s call to action for 5 May 2013 asks hospitals to “continue to focus on hand hygiene monitoring and feedback” and reminds them that “patients have a voice too.” This reminder has particular resonance for the English NHS in light of recent events where patient safety had low priority, even though England and Wales were the first, in December 2004, to roll out a national Cleanyourhands campaign.1

Research published in the BMJ a year ago showed that the Cleanyourhands campaign, coordinated by the National …