HEALTH Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has warned against complacency despite revealing Scottish boards were on track to meet tough hand washing targets.
Nurses at NHS Lothian hospitals are among those across the country whose hard work has seen compliance with hand hygiene rules rise to 87 per cent.
However, Ms Sturgeon wants levels to improve to 90 per cent to help prevent avoidable hospital inf
ections.
She said: "It is not just about reaching the target of at least 90 per cent hand hygiene by November 2008, but also about sustaining and improving on this level of compliance year-on-year."
The report by Health Protection Scotland revealed that compliance with the hand hygiene target went up 19 percentage points from February 2007, when it stood at 68 per cent, to 87 per cent at the end of February 2008.
NHS Lothian has piloted several initiatives aimed at ensuring staff are more vigilant when it comes to washing their hands, including UV lights which highlights skin that has not been scrubbed clean, and voice boxes that remind people about cleanliness when they walk in and out of wards.
Dr Alison McCallum, director of public health and health policy at NHS Lothian, said: "Our overall compliance rate has risen from 66 per cent in the first monitoring period, to 79 per cent in the third period.
"This shows some sustained progress and we are well placed to achieve the expected performance level of 90 per cent by November 2008.
"NHS Lothian is about to mount a major new hand hygiene promotional campaign.
We will be targeting people in key areas to increase the use of the specially-provided cleansing products."
The full article contains 285 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
