A world-first in health-protecting hand gel has been tested at Royal Preston Hospital.

Health chiefs and scientists say the hand gel, used by clinical staff and patients across Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust, is more effective for an hour at cutting infection.

This compares to 15 minutes for the current standard of hand gel used more widely across the trust and elsewhere in the NHS.

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Running at the city’s hospital the trial was found on average to have a 91 per cent higher ‘antimicrobial efficacy’ rate for the hand gel.

Professor Mark Wilcox from the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust, said: “With hospital-acquired infection rates such as Clostridium difficile currently increasing annually within UK hospitals, and the challenges of spreading antimicrobial resistance, new solutions are needed to cut infection risks in healthcare settings.

“The results from the Lancashire Teaching Hospital trial show Primel Active Hand Shield’s superior efficacy over current alcohol hand hygiene sanitisers that are in widespread use in the NHS.

“This novel hand hygiene product offers the chance to break the infection transmission cycle and, importantly, provide increased safety for patients, healthcare professionals and visitors. Going forwards, infection prevention guidelines need to consider this novel way of improving hand hygiene.”

Consultancy in infection and clinical director for pathology at the trust, Dr David Orr, said: “In collaboration with Primel, we developed this trial to measure the immediate and residual antimicrobial activity on the hands of staff treated with Primel Active Hand Shield in comparison with an alcohol-based hand sanitiser.

“The results from this trial have been very encouraging, and the feedback from our staff was very positive. Poor hand hygiene compliance is a widespread problem in healthcare services and is nationally reported to be between 40% to 60%.”

The new hand gel has been developed by Primel, its chief executive Arjun Luthra, said: “By offering this innovative technology, our solution adds an additional dimension to hand hygiene, by allowing users to reduce the transmission of pathogens on surfaces by their touch to further enhance the effective stopping of the spread of pathogens. The next step for us is to roll out our Active Hand Shield solution throughout the NHS.”

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