The health chiefs at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence think that Britons do not know how to wash their hands properly and have to be taught better hygiene practices to combat infection and antibiotic resistance.
In draft guidance, the institute calls for information campaigns on hand washing, food hygiene and the need for vaccinations. The watchdog said it wanted to change behaviour to stop resistant microbes spreading. Critics said it was “ridiculous” that Britons needed to be taught simple principles of hygiene. The guidance states that videos and apps, as well as leaflets and posters, should be developed, telling people why it is important to wash their hands, when they should wash their hands and how to wash their hands.
It adds that in “public and private childcare settings” it is particularly important to “train staff in hand-washing and how to clean furniture, floors, toys, toilets and door handles” and “provide soap and hand sanitisers.”
Roger Goss, of Patient Concern, said: “If people have to be told this, there is something seriously wrong with our education system. What do people think they have bathrooms for? It is ridiculous. These guidelines are a statement of the glaringly obvious.”
He warned that the guidelines could even be “counterproductive” by “turning people off who think they are being treated like idiots.” In England, infectious diseases accounted for 8 per cent of hospital bed days in 2010/11. In the UK as a whole they are thought to account for more than a fifth of all days off work.
The guidelines state that the public should be encouraged to treat themselves at home for things such as colds and flu, rather than demanding antibiotics. Universities should help first-year students who are learning to handle infections on their own for the first time, while schools should offer lessons to children on antibiotic resistance and how to combat it.
Goss was equally critical of that portion of the guidelines. He said: “How do we know a cold is a cold and not life-threatening pneumonia? If we knew ourselves what was a self-limiting condition then we wouldn’t need doctors.” Professor Gillian Leng, deputy chief executive at Nice, said: “The overuse of antibiotics in the last 30 years has led to microbial resistance, and with so few new antibiotics being developed, this could result in once-treatable infections becoming fatal in years to come.
“This new draft guideline focuses on interventions to help change people’s behaviour and reduce antimicrobial resistance.”
