Why hygiene is vital for your pharmacy: Pharmacies are high on the list of workplaces that need to be kept clean and hygienic. If you run a pharmacy, it pays to stay on top of the cleanliness of your premises, resulting in repeat customers and happy employees.
How will hygiene benefit your pharmacy?
A good housekeeping regime for a pharmacy involves the following, according to nursing.net:
- Cleaning up during a shift
- Waste disposal
- Removal of unused materials
- Inspection to ensure the clean-up is complete
To keep this routine running like clockwork, it’s good to have an organised system whereby tasks are delegated to certain employees on each shift. This keeps all members of the team happy. Customers are also more likely to return if they encounter clean premises and are served by well-presented staff who follow hygiene guidelines.
For staff, pharmacies are typically confined spaces that involve a lot of movement. If your pharmacy follows good cleanliness habits, it should naturally be free of obstacles and potentially falling objects that could cause people to trip.
That being said, accidents happen, so protect your business against unexpected mishaps by covering it with pharmacy insurance which could cover you should the worst happen.
How can cross-contamination be avoided?
Staying abreast of the latest National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness is of paramount importance for pharmacies, and a cleaning regime can be put together using these guidelines. This indicates how frequently the pharmacy and its contents need to be cleaned.
Records should be kept of which parts of the hygiene regime have been done each day, such as when equipment has been sterilised.
Training staff in accordance with this, so that everyone’s personal standards are up to scratch, is necessary too, as it only takes one person to lower the cleanliness standards of the whole workspace.
Whose responsibility is pharmacy hygiene?
Pharmacy owners are responsible for the hygiene standards of the pharmacy.
If employees all work together and share out the tasks of cleaning during their shifts, running a pharmacy free of hygiene problems is an achievable goal.
Having the right equipment will help them conduct these tasks and maintain morale. For a carpeted pharmacy, a heavy-duty vacuum cleaner is necessary to clean up hairs, dust and spilled medication that can accumulate on the floor.
And when it comes to dusting, bear in mind that microfibre cloths are much more effective than cotton ones, absorbing dust rather than simply brushing it off and into the air.
Organising medications clearly in the fridge, as well as on your shelves, will keep things ticking over at a pace that keeps everyone happy. The time saved by eliminating situations where staff might have to ask each other about medication placement frees up more time for them to deal with daily hygiene tasks.
Good organisation leads to cleanliness. Keep a cleaning schedule and a log, designed in accordance with NHS guidelines, recording times when parts of the pharmacy and its equipment were cleaned.
With all this in mind, you can run a clean, friendly pharmacy that staff are proud to work for and customers are happy to return to.
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