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Self-service reception Covid-19 risk

Story from nhs.uk

"Self-service reception Covid-19 risk"

About: Northern General Hospital

Upon arriving at the Radiology reception desk, I was expected to 'sign in' using the same touch screen as everyone that was there before me. During a pandemic in which a virus can be spread by touch, it is baffling that a whole series of people are expected to touch the same spot, one after the other. It only takes one of those people to have Covid-19 and everyone who touched the screen after them would be infected. I refused to use the screen until it had been cleaned. The receptionist was very reluctant to do this and claimed that the screen was 'cleaned reguarly'. Yet it hadn't been cleaned after any of the people in front of me had used it. This system is negligent and dangerous - and it's beyond ridiculous that it's being used in a hospital, of all places.

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Responses

Response from Deborah Hopkinson, Patient Experience Co-ordinator, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 3 years ago
Deborah Hopkinson
Patient Experience Co-ordinator,
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 23/09/2020 at 11:40
Published on Care Opinion at 14:22

Thank you for your feedback and for raising your concerns. We wish to acknowledge that people generally have fears concerning Covid-19 and visits to hospital; we fully understand this.

I will ensure your comments are fed back to our infection control team who are working very hard alongside all of our staff to mitigate the impact of this dreadful disease.

One of the many measures we have taken is to ensure that there are sanitising stations within our entrances/departments/clinics/wards for patients, visitors and staff whereby hands can be sanitised when entering/leaving an area. Once in the area if an individual has any concerns about touching a surface and are worried that there may be an infection risk, they are welcome to return to reuse the hand sanitiser or to use the hand sanitisers that are placed in the reception areas.

I am very sorry that when you did raise your concerns with the receptionist they seemed reluctant to clean the screen, again this will be highlighted to our infection control team and to the appropriate Radiology department managers.

I will of course contact you again if I receive any comments further to this posting.

Kind regards

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