Hand Hygiene Guide

When to wash your hands

• Before eating or handling food
  
• After using the toilet
  
• After blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing
  
• After touching animals or animal waste
  
• After handling rubbish
  
• After changing a nappy
  
• Before and after touching a sick or injured person
  
• Before and after visiting a hospital ward
  
• Bacterial counts increase when the skin is damaged.

Hand washing causes a significant reduction in the carriage of potential pathogens on hands

Most microbes on hands come from beneath the fingernails

Staff are more likely to wash their hands with a product that does less harm to the skin.