What is Gloves Off in Critical Care?
Disposable gloves are one of the biggest environmental hotspots in hospital, with more than 100 used per patient per day in intensive care.3 Despite this usage there are many circumstances where glove use is unnecessary.
Using gloves when you don't need to not only contributes to environmental damage but it also disrupts good hand hygiene practice.
To mark World Hand Hygiene Day 2023 we produced a series of posters for you to use in your unit, outlining when glove use isn't necessary and the questions you should ask yourself before you reach for gloves.
Download them today and make sure you share them with colleagues to help spread an important message that can have a big impact on planetary health.
Gloves Off
Implementing Gloves Off
Our Gloves Off in Critical Care Implementation Guide aims to give you the tools and guidance you need to drive a substantial and important change in your unit. We hope it changes the way you and your team use gloves in the course of your work, helping you to assess the need for them in a wide range of circumstances.
The guide is based on the work of the team at Wirral University Teaching Hospital (WUTH), and has been created by Sam Clark, the team at WUTH and our Sustainability Working Group.
It has also been endorsed by the British Association of Critical Care Nurses (BACCN) and Infection Prevention Society (IPS).
Glove Use Audit Tool
The Gloves Use Audit Tool has been developed by the team at Wirral University Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It has been adapted from the ‘Glove-use audit tool’ published by Wilson et. al. in the Journal of Infection Prevention (2014). You can find both the digital tool and the editable document below.
