The Hospital Sterilisation and Decontamination Unit provide a service for Reusable Invasive Medical Devices (RIMD’s) more commonly known as surgical instrumentation at East Surrey and Crawley site. This is a vital service to the Operating Theatres, Clinics and Wards within Crawley, Horsham, Caterham Dene and East Surrey Hospital.
The HSDU also provides the Decontamination facilities and processes for the endoscopy unit on both ESH and Crawley site.
The role of the HSDU is essential for ensuring that every patient, who is having a procedure, does so with RIMD’s that have been decontaminated to the appropriate standard.
The HSDU supplies:
Sterile composite and single RIMD’s packs
Sterile packs prepared for specific treatment procedures.
Sterile comprehensive operating department tray sets containing surgical instruments
Disinfected re-usable heat labile RIMD’s.
Endoscope decontamination (high level disinfection)
There are three stages to the HSDU process:
The Washroom
Packs are checked by the technician, to ensure everything has been returned. The devices are then cleaned and disinfected.
Inspection and Packing Room (IAP)
All devices have to be checked to ensure that they are clean and fit for purpose, once this is complete they are placed into trays and wrapped in sterilization drapes.
Sterilization Area
Steam sterilisers are unloaded and loaded and this is where sterilized packs are released from. Staff also despatch to wards and departments.
Endoscopy
The endoscopes will be manually cleaned before being placed in a validated Endoscope Washer Disinfector where they are washed, both externally and all internal channels before being exposed to a high level chemical disinfectant to ensure they are safe to re-use.
