Handwashing Essay

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Generating a focus of enquiry
This report will focus on the search for feasible articles on the topic of Hand Washing and Preventative factors relating to barriers to handwashing practices and why this is not done. The topic handwashing was chosen because it is a fundamental part of nursing care, which can prevent cross infection and hospital associated infections spreading (Nidirect, 2018). The Royal College of Nursing (2016) states the thumbs and fingertips are the main parts of the hands used during contact however, this is the areas that are missed the most during hand washing. Evidently, the effects of not washing your hands properly could have an impact on everyone, not just yourself and your family. For example, patient’s wellbeing, longer length of hospital stays which obviously puts more of a strain on the National Health Service (NHS), the costs factor and ultimately patients could die (Shepherd, Stephenson and Ford, 2014). The other part of the topic, Preventative factors, was chosen because there are many factors that could possibly prevent good hand washing such as training and lack of understanding (RFERENCE nurses training nmc not getting off the ward for training n best practise barriers to nursing ). Staff need to make sure their training is up to date on infection control and they need educating so they have adequate knowledge on how to wash their hands correctly (Health Awareness, 2018).
World Health Organisation (WHO) (2018) states that many infections are passed from patient to patient mostly by health professionals. There have been approximately 1.4 million incidents relating to hospital associated infections but there could be many more (WHO,

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