Alternative Endoscope Washer Disinfector (EWD) Chemistries can help you save money, improve performance and reduce damage to endoscopes.

Working with Peskett Solutions, we have helped the endoscope decontamination unit at both Croydon Health Services NHS Trust and Brighton University Hospitals:

• save £56,000 per annum,
• reduce endoscope damage caused by the use of cleaning and disinfectant chemistries by 23% 
• increase up time by 41%.

Peter Brown, general manager of decontamination, medical equipment and commercial development at the Trust appointed Audere Medical Services Limited and Peskett Solutions to help his department improve the availability of endoscope washer disinfectors by evaluating alternative chemistries to proprietary chemistries previously used whilst following the guidelines of HTM 01-06, Decontamination of flexible endoscopes.

At the conclusion of the two year project at Croydon, we asked the following questions:

Will the Trust save money changing to alternative chemistries?

• We saved our project hospital £56,000 per annum on their Endoscope Washer Disinfector detergent, disinfectant costs.

Are there any other added benefits with using alternative chemistries?

• Our alternative EWD project ran for two years. The customer monitored the chemical effects to the EWD’s and Endoscopes.
• The endoscope manufacturer has reported a 23% reduction in scope damage from the cleaning and disinfectant chemistries.
• The customer has reported an impressive increase of 41% in the up time. This has been attributed to the alternative chemistries and improved servicing and parts.

How did we deal with Type Testing?

• The type testing for the chemistries was performed by us (Audere Medical Services Limited) on site. The alternative chemistries were selected to chemically match the chemistries supplied by the Endoscope Washer Disinfector manufacturer based on ensuring EWD and Endoscope compatibility.

How did we ensure patient safety?

• To offer alternative chemistries we had to ensure that all the required EWD validation was carried out to the relevant standards. During the trial, the endoscopes have shown no significant signs of deterioration. We are confident that this will continue and there should be no impact on Patient Safety.

The undertakings and results of the project has been reported in full in the June edition of The Clinical Services Journal. To read the full article, please click on the images below.