The management, cleaning, handling, transporting, storing and disposal of clinical waste (biohazard waste) are governed by well defined laws.
There are many papers that help define legal requirements but it appears that as yet there is not a single point of reference that can be relied upon to satisfy a comprehensive learning exercise. However, the HSE has compiled a paper headed: ‘Advisory committee on dangerous pathogens’, which draws from other references to create an excellent guide on helping organisations to comply with the law. Some useful extracts from this and other guidance papers are included as an attachment below.
In the meantime we offer the following prose as a simple overview. Where the word blood is used it implies any body fluid discharge or clinical waste.
Blood spills must be scrupulously cleaned and decontamination practices must be adequate and thorough in their application. Employers have a legal duty to protect all on their property from the risk of infection from bloodborne pathogens. The law also places a responsibility on employees to cooperate with their employers to enable them to comply with the law. The primary responsibility rests with the employer who must ensure an incident management policy is in place that is functional and has the full support of everyone likely to be involved.
Organisations employing five or more staff must have a written statement of their health and safety policy. Protection against bloodborne viruses can be covered in a local policy depending on the type of organisation.
By law all employees and their safety representatives must be consulted in an effort to create and maintain a safe and healthy working environment. This will include carrying out a risk assessment and introducing a method to control or eliminate those risks.
Decontamination practises and procedures should cater for all likely scenarios including the decontamination of re-useable equipment to make it safe to put back into service. Appropriate disinfection is also required. Individuals employed to carry out decontamination and disinfection must be educated as to suitable personal protection equipment (PPE) and trained in its use. They must also be provided with suitable and sufficient information, instruction and training in the many disciplines involved in dealing with a blood discharge. (An outside agency can be appointed to the task of decontamination)
It is necessary to have an incident reporting procedure and a procedure for when possible infection occurs.
The employer must have a policy for disposing of contaminated waste. The law may require, subject to circumstance, that a clinical waste bag be used and information tags be attached. Biohazard waste includes contaminated sharps. All such waste is disposed of by a licensed operative, normally incineration. There are laws that govern the storage of bio-waste (how and for how long) as well as transportation (a clinical waste transporters license is required)
The law no longer allows for some blood spills to be hosed down with water and swept down the drain or soaked to ground.
Right click, Save Target As
The above is a broad summary and makes no claim to be comprehensive. At first sight the reader may conclude that compliance with the law could be expensive and time consuming. This conclusion would be wrong. Biosafe offer an economical solution that is sufficiently comprehensive to ensure ease of legal compliance. (Please refer to details on our training courses)
Call Today