Revising Nightingale's legacy

Dancer, S.J.

Abstract

The recent editorial from this Journal does well to highlight the benefits of hand hygiene once again [ 1 ]. It is entirely appropriate to support the need for clean hands, especially during an ongoing pandemic. But there is another message that seems to have got lost. This message is about cleaning the surfaces that hands touch, since hands only require attention because of their capacity for contact with a host of contaminated sites [ 2 ]. Why is there this perpetual disconnect between hands and hand-touch sites? Does it not make sense to tackle the cleaning aspects of both?

Citation

Dancer, S. (2020). Revising Nightingale's legacy. Journal of Hospital Infection, 105(2), 344-345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2020.03.016

• Journal Article Type: Letter
• Acceptance Date: Mar 13, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Mar 19, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020-06
• Deposit Date: May 15, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 23, 2020
• Journal: Journal of Hospital Infection
• Print ISSN: 0195-6701
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 105
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 344-345
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2020.03.016
• Keywords: Microbiology; Infectious Diseases; Handwashing
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2663325