Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 25th April 2024 Issue no. 1111
Your industry news - first
The original and best - for over 20 years!
We strongly recommend viewing Cleanzine full size in your web browser. Click our masthead above to visit our website version.
Ecolab to deliver five million litres of hand sanitiser to the NHS
Ecolab is to supply NHS Supply Chain with five million litres of hand sanitiser, Skinman Soft Protect FF, by the end of the year.
Ecolab has been a long-term supplier of NHS Supply Chain, providing critical infection prevention solutions, combined with service and training to help ensure cleaner, safer and healthier healthcare environments. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the demand for infection prevention solutions has surged, and Ecolab has worked closely with NHS Supply Chain to help ensure the right products are delivered where they are needed the most across the NHS and health & social care.
"Ecolab has been a reliable partner at the heart of the crisis," says Miranda Gordon, head of category, wound care and infection control at NHS Supply Chain. "Its healthcare team has always been a phonecall away and has proven great resilience to help supply disinfection products. Now that the peak has passed, we are building new stock of critical products and ensure our preparedness, whatever may come. We are grateful to Ecolab for the continuous support."
Ecolab has increased manufacturing capacity by 700% across Europe to help meet demand for critical infection prevention solutions. To supply this record quantity of hand sanitiser to NHS Supply Chain, Ecolab has mobilised its Weavergate production plant in Northwich, Cheshire in the UK. The manufacturing team has set up a new mixing and filling line in six weeks to locally produce alcohol-based hand rub for professional use in large quantities.
The first bottles were filled and delivered in early July, and further enhancements will help produce a quarter of a million bottles per week from September – 20 new associates have been hired locally to support the production team of more than 50 full-time workers.
Howard Wilkinson, area vice president for Ecolab Healthcare in North and West Europe, says: "We are delighted to work alongside NHS Supply Chain to provide critical product into the NHS and social care across the UK. The wider Ecolab team has worked tirelessly to retool and scale our local manufacturing in order to deliver a solution to the local market in under six weeks. Our speed of response reflects the strength of a global company with local reach in the UK during the pandemic."
The five million litres of Skinman Soft Protect FF will be delivered in one-litre bottles. Skinman Soft Protect FF is a liquid, alcohol-based hand rub with a skin-friendly formulation providing full virucidal efficacy in 30 seconds according to EN 14476. Using an alcohol-based hand rub with a specific claim for efficacy against enveloped viruses is one of
the best ways to avoid transmission of emerging pathogens.
Ecolab has also been supplying a wider range of hand hygiene and high-level surface disinfection products compliant with EN 14476 or have limited spectrum activity against vaccinia virus according to EN 14476.
Ecolab is committed to support healthcare facilities across Europe and is working with 8,700 hospitals across more than 90 countries globally.
3rd September 2020