UK
The NHS loses 80+% of its linen every year, according to the Textile Services Association (TSA) , referring to the startlingly high numbers provided by the Association’s membership. It’s a massive drain on resources and very much against sustainability targets. Now the TSA is working with the NHS to put together a programme to help reduce the level of wastage.
Around 90% of the NHS’s linen, which includes bed sheets, pillowcases, and surgical gowns, is actually owned by commercial laundries, so TSA members are acutely aware of the wastage issue – and the stats. Typically, a laundry will supply the linen, collect it when dirty, then sort it, wash it, repair or replace it if required, and then return it. The NHS losses amount to 4 million pieces of linen, which equates to 7,600 tonnes of carbon. It’s not just the textiles that are lost – to manufacture those 4 million lost pieces will have taken 24 billion litres of water, the equivalent of around 300 million full bathtubs.
“It’s a massive problem and a big black mark against the NHS’s own sustainability targets,” said David Stevens, CEO of the TSA., pictured “A key issue is getting NHS staff to understand the value of the linen they use – a lot of the losses are due to misuse. For example, they shouldn’t be using bed linen to clean things or mop up spills.”
In conjunction with the NHS, the TSA is putting together training resources to help staff understand the value of linen and to explain what good (and bad) practice looks like. One poster shows how to make linen last longer, listing the types of stains that can render the textile unusable.
Another key issue the TSA is focusing on is disposable vs reusable gowns. “The sustainability argument is cut and dried,” says Stevens. “A disposable gown can be used once, reusable gowns can be used 70 or more times, which makes them both economically and environmentally the best choice. At end of life, disposable gowns have to be disposed of, whereas reusable ones can be recycled.” While around 30% of the NHS estate uses reusable surgical gowns, this still leaves significant numbers that don’t.
Stevens presented the TSA’s ideas at the recent Healthcare Facilities Management Conference. “The feedback we have had from NHS bosses has been very positive,” he says. “We are working with them to find the best way to educate and change attitudes, with the aim of delivering a more sustainable linen service for the NHS.”
• LCN contacted Dave Grimshaw, chair of the Society of Hospital Linen Service and Laundry Managers (SHLSLM), with members across the NHS, for comment. He said: “The Society, along with its members, has long been talking to the NHS over linen losses but has often hit a brick wall especially when tender specifications have stated that the Trust will not be responsible for any such losses.
“There was a significant sea change around their response when they started to have their own issues at the time of Covid, and the Society has kept up this pressure since then and is trying to produce a strategy to prevent such losses.
“The main issue is with education where clinical staff do not understand the ownership of the linen or the cost of replacement and no one is held responsible for missing items. This will only ever change if a mechanism is in place to penalise misuse for which there must be an agreed buy-in by the NHS leadership.”
