Promoting Hand Hygiene in Healthcare

Introduction

Health education plays a crucial role in enhancing the health outcome and raising awareness among the individuals so that they can contribute more in the care plan to maximise wellbeing of the patients in the health and social care institutions (Brownson, Colditz, and Proctor, 2018). It is necessary for all the staff members in the health and social care institutions to manage hygienic factors to create better place for the patients to place safely. In this context hand hygiene is necessary for the benefits of the patients where there are many organisations who are not concerned about had hygiene at the hospitals and this leads to deterioration of the patient’s health. Through this study, it is posisbel to understand the health education and promotional strategies by the policy makers and other health and social care leaders to improve heath outcome through maintaining hand hygiene. The study focuses on discussing different theoretical models related to health education and promotion of health in the society so that it is possible to implement effective strategic planning in the current practice health and social care so that the health and social care professionals can maximise the values of the patients and enhance the health outcome across different hospitals. In this regard, the hand hygiene is necessary to promote for enhancing the practice of infection control and hand washing in different hospitals across the UK so that the infection can be centred through maintaining hand hygiene. It is hereby important to develop promotional strategy for infection control and hand washing which in turn helps to improve health education across different hospitals in the UK, while also highlighting the need for healthcare dissertation help in this critical area.

Rationale of choosing the theoretical models

The theoretical models in this study is necessary for improving knowledge and understanding about the health promotion and education so that it is effective to develop proper intervention planning for Infection Control and Hand Washing across different hospitals in the UK. In this study, two theoretical models are utilised which are Health Belief Model and Theory of Planned Behaviour through which it is helpful to evaluate the ways to improving health education for promoting the Infection Control and Hand Washing which is necessary for the benefits of the patients at the hospitals. In the recent years, the issue of managing infection control strategy and hand washing is raising rapidly due to lack of safety and security measures at the hospitals for which the patients are suffering from infectious diseases which is risky for all the patients. Hereby, it is required for all the hospitals across the UK to maintain safety and security at the hospitals and provide clean environment to the patients so that the health outcome can be maximised and enhanced with safety and cleanliness (Israel et al., 2019). The models are hereby important to improve understanding about the needs for health education and promotional campaign for increasing awareness about the Infection Control and Hand Washing. Through these models of Health Belief Model and the theory of planed behaviour, it is possible to develop proper strategies to promote campaign in order to imporve the practice of Infection Control and Hand Washing at the hospitals across the UK so that hand sanitisation and hygiene can be managed well at the hospital which are effective or the benefits and wellbeing of the patients where the patients can be clean environment and safety to stay and overcome the health issues.

Aims of the initiatives

The aim of the initiative is to maximise the health and wellbeing of the individuals living in the social communities of the UK. The initiative is for enhancing the standard of living of the social communities where they can get proper support and guidelines to maintain hand hygiene which is necessary for Infection Control so that they can avoid Any infectious disease in the locality which can be formed due to lack of safety and hand hygiene were infections are formed and affects the human body. Hereby, it is necessary to develop strategies and social campaign for raising awareness among the individuals about Infection Control and Hand Washing so that they can be concerned about hand washing and they become successful to managed infection control at the hospitals and local communities also.

Risks and opportunities

The major risk in implementing the initiatives are such as lack of cooperation of the people at the locality, lack of communication and poor response where poor participation of the individuals reduce the success rate of the initiative. There are many people who are least interested to attend the campaign and gain knowledge about the importance of infection control and hand washing (Hadley, and Hatch, 2018). On the other hand, the opportunities of the initiative are to improve the wellbeing and standard of living of the local people at different social communities so that they can get suitable environment to stay and live. On the other hand, the initiative is important for all the hospitals across the UK in which the health and social care providers can promote hand hygiene and infection control and hand washing at the hospitals where all the patient’s family, nurses, health care professionals, doctors and other care givers are concerned to maintain safety and security of the patients. Hereby, through this strategy of infection control and hand washing, it is possible to maximise wellbeing of the patients at the hospitals as well as improve human behaviours to maintain safety and hand hygiene which is necessary for infection control. Through the initiative, it is hereby beneficial to create values for the patients at the hospital as well as for the social communities as a whole where people can be concerned to keep their hands safe from the infections through hand washing and using hand sanitiser.

Initiative

Developing campaign and strategies for Infection Control and Hand Washing in hospitals in the UK.

The initiative is to develop effective strategic planning for Infection Control and Hand Washing as well as promote the practice of v through creating social campaigning that raise awareness among the people at different local communities and also across different hospitals in the UK. Through the initiative, it is posisbel to enhance health outcome and reduce the chance of infectious disease affected people in the society. The time frame for implementing such initiative is 12 months, within which it is expected that the strategies are implemented and executed at different hospitals and apart from that it is also easy to promote health education for Infection Control and Hand Washing among the social communities where they can avid infectious disease through keeping their hand clean.

Resource needed

The major resources for implementing this initiative are human resource including efficient staff members policy makers and managers of the hospitals, financial resources including proper investment for Infection Control and Hand Washing and physical infrastructure of the hospital including providing hand sanitiser, managing CCTV camera for monitoring the progress etc. Which are contributing factor for promoting heath education regarding Infection Control and Hand Washing at different hospitals across the UK. In this regard the human resource are playing a crucial role where efficient staff members can promote Infection Control and Hand Washing through improving communication and cooperation where the above mentioned risk of poor cooperation, lack of participants and lack of communication can be resolved and it is also possible to improve awareness about Infection Control and Hand Washing contributing health promotion in the social communities (Knapp et al., 2018).

Exploring the relationship between theoretical models of health education and health behaviour

The theories of Health Belief model and planned behaviour are effective to develop proper strategic planning and promote the Infection Control and Hand Washing campaign through managing human resource and investing more finance. As per the Health Belief model, the person use protection if the individual feels that the condition is not favourable. Hereby, it is necessary to let the people understand about the negative consequences of unhygienic issues of hand and infectious diseases. In order to prevent the negative health condition, the individuals try to make positive expectations and take recommended actions for the wellbeing of the people. In this regard, personality and knowledge of the individuals are playing crucial ole where the individuals can understand the consequences of lack of Infection Control and Hand Washing in their daily lives (Pate and Dowda, 2019).

Perceived susceptibility and perceived severity develop perceived threats where the individuals can understand the negative sides of heath and apart from that, the theory suggests that the people tris to overcome the perceived barriers through taking actions which enhances self-efficacy and individual behaviours contributing to develop cues to action for avoiding negative health outcome. Through this model, it is possible to understand that, the person’s perception about risk of illness or diseases, person’s vulnerability to illness and diseases leads the person towards taking effective action to avoid negative health outcomes. Moreover, as per the person’s severity, person’s feelings on the seriousness of contracting an illness and diseases as well as medical consequences such as death and disability leads the person towards taking proper action to reduce the threats of illness or the diseases which is beneficial for the individual to accept suggested recommended health actions if it is perceived as beneficial for the wellbeing of the people. Perceived barriers include person’s feeling about the obstacles of performing the recommended health action, cost and benefit of the health action where it may be expensive, dangerous, unpleasant, time consuming or inconvenient. However, the person tries to resolve the perceived barrier to develop cues of actions by making effective decision to implement the recommended health actions (Gough et al., 2019). On the other hand, the theory of planed behaviour is also effective for promoting the infection control and hand washing through improving understanding about the behaviour of the individual. It refers to the behavioural achievements depending on both motivation and ability of the person. Behavioural beliefs have direct influence on the person’s attitude and behaviour. It is expected that, if the health actions are good for the wellbeing of the individuals, then it is posisbel to create positive attitude and behaviour among the person through motivating the individuals and increasing the likelihood of actual performance.

In this regard, normative belief involves the people’s character and behavioural expectation of the person in maximising health outcome. Behavioural control and motivation have high influence to implement the health actions and it is considered as important factor for influencing the person about managing infection control and hand washing through improving health education and taking different strategies for avoiding the negative health outcome such as infectious disease. The individual behaviour and perceived behavioural attitude are hereby playing an important role to raise awareness about infection control and hand washing, and it is effective to motivate the people with proper information for managing infection control and hand washing.

Implementing local education initiative by using theoretical model of health education

As per the above theoretical model, it is necessary to take active steps for maintaining Infection Control and Hand Washing so that it is possible to manage safety at the hospitals and promote health education regarding health hygiene which is necessary to prevent the chances of infectious diseases. It is necessary to implement policy, system and environment so that it is possible to motivate the people to manage the Infection Control and Hand Washing at the hospitals across the UK. It is necessary to implement the Health and Social Care Act 2010 as well as the Patient Safety Authority and Care Quality Commission provides proper guidelines for managing patient’s safety at the hospitals. it is necessary to manage the policy and guidelines for enhancing the activities of Infection Control and Hand Washing. In this regard, organisational culture plays a crucial role in improving the practice of Infection Control and Hand Washing and in this regard, the managers and staff members need to cooperate with each other and promote Infection Control and Hand Washing at the hospitals through providing proper information of hand washing, drying after rinsing, using hand sanitiser, alcohol hand rubbing system for all the nurses, doctors and also the visitors of the patients. These are effective steps through which the initiative of promoting Infection Control and Hand Washing can be possible at the hospitals (Matar et al., 2018). The theorical model of planned behaviour is applicable here, where the environmental structure an organisational culture of Infection Control and Hand Washing are useful to motivate the people to maintain hand hygiene and improve their behavioural and positive attitude towards mitigating the risks of infectious diseases or illness.

Using hand sanitiser is necessary for the health and social care providers and also the visitors at the hospital where the health care authority and management team of the hospitals needs to add hand sanitiser dispensers to high traffic and high touch areas such as by the patient’s doors, telephones in the hallway, elevators o the hospitals and the other areas where the visitors are waiting so that it can motivate the visitors also to improve health education and change their behaviour toward managing hand hygiene for the safety of themselves. In addition to these, the Health Belief Model is also necessary, where the health promotional campaign is necessary to raise awareness among the individuals as per the model, the people try to recognise the negative health outcome and assess the illness or infectious disease and they try to take recommended health action for the benefits of themselves. In this regard, social campaign plays a crucial role in promoting infection control and hand washing initiatives among the individual where it is possible to achieve the aim of improving hand hygiene among the people by raising awareness. Small and relevant content regarding the importance of managing hand hygiene is also effective for promoting infection control and hand washing (Castro, and Munoz-Price, 2019). The pictures how to wash hands and the benefits of managing hand hygiene are useful for promoting infection control and hand washing initiatives at the hospitals. Mass media strategies are other effective ways to promote infection control and hand washing initiatives through which proper information of washing hand s can be provided to the people by using television, newspapers, brochure and social media including Facebook and YouTube.

Conclusion

It can be considered as important strategic planning to promote the awareness campaign and influence the people regarding Infection Control and Hand Washing initiatives so that the infectious disease can be prevented soon, and the wellbeing of the patients can be enhanced well. It is necessary to promote Infection Control and Hand Washing initiatives at the hospitals though hand washing posters across the hospitals, dispatching hand sanitiser at the patient’s doors and other places of the hospitals as well as developing suitable organisational culture through providing training to the staff members and implementing the safety policies so that the service user and service providers can manage Infection Control and Hand Washing initiatives.