NHS Trusts that follow new NICE guidelines on keeping surgical patients warm risk contaminating operating theatres, because they recommend systems which cannot be cleaned, a clinician has warned. Concerns have been raised following research carried out by Dr Scott Augustine, the anaesthetist who first invented the forced air warming technique.
“When we first developed forced air warming there was not the focus that there is today on MRSA and hospital-acquired infections,” said Dr Augustine. “It is very important that patients are warmed before, during and after surgery so we were concentrating on that.
“We then discovered that bacteria accretes within the equipment and hoses. Hardly any of these units are HEPA-filtered and cannot be effectively cleaned – so they blow bacteria directly out into the operating theatre.”
He added that they also blow particles of potentially-contaminated skin around the theatre, which poses a potential risk of MRSA. “These devices cannot be effectively decontaminated, so their use contravenes the Health Act. We are not sure how many UK hospitals are using forced air systems to warm their patients but we fear it may be as high as 80%.”
