We are here to help in more than one way, here's a little bit of sound advice for you:
With the emphasis on both mattress integrity for patient comfort and pressure sore prevention and ensuring robust infection prevention control, 6 monthly mattress audits are highly recommended and regarded as industry best practice.
All healthcare organisations must be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and be actively working towards improving cleanliness and reducing the infection rates in their organisation.
Regular auditing is just one action you can take towards meeting national CQC regulations and safeguarding your patients and staff. Being able to identify when products are no longer ‘fit for purpose’ will ensure that you always have the most effective equipment in use and enable you to maintain the highest standards of care in your organisation
Your decision as a Care Home Manager is very much around whether you decide to train your staff to carry out these audits or to bring in an outside and potentially more expensive external provider.
In-house training has the added training advantage of helping to raise awareness of mattress health, mattress checking and the importance of mattress condition in relation to patient well- being, comfort and pressure sore prevention.
Helpful Online Audit Tools
There is an abundance on online tools available to download and use, here is just one issued by the NHS:
Andway Healthcare offer Mattress Audits as part of our Service and Maintenance packages, prices given on application.