Do beds stored on hospital corridors have an increased bacterial load than beds in use on acute hospital wards?

Do beds stored on hospital corridors have an increased bacterial load than beds in use on acute hospital wards? Using ATP bioluminescence testing, is there evidence to suggest that unused beds need to be stored in a clean environment rather than busy hospital corridors.
Introduction

Space is at a premium in many NHS organisations. Corridors are magnets for unused items both in and outside of healthcare settings (Keyes 2015). Many items of clinical and none clinical equipment migrate to corridors outside hospital wards due to a significant lack of storage within the clinical ward area (Keyes 2015). Keyes (2015) highlights this as a problem from a health and safety perspective, but Reboux et al (2014) outline the principle of hospital corridors being a significant risk of contamination from an infection control point of view, highlighting a much heightened risk of both bacterial and fungal contamination on equipment stored on corridors.

Within the Children’s Hospital trust in which I work there are many types of bed to cater for the various ages of children attending the hospital. These range from bassinet cots to cot beds and to standard size hospital beds. It is very difficult to predict which age of child will be admitted, so inevitably there are more beds in the building than bed spaces to put them in. Invariably corridors are used daily to store the varying types of bed until ward staff know the age of the patient to be admitted. These beds stored in corridors are regularly ‘touched’ by passers-by including visitors and staff alike.

Although questioned in its efficacy by Brown and Eder (2010), adenosine triphosphate (ATP) bioluminescence measurements have been used in healthcare and in food hygiene areas for many years and are used as a method to rapidly test an area or piece of equipment to assess level of cleanliness (Omidabakhsh et al, 2014).

Background/literature review

Using both internet search engines such as Google and Bing, I have extensively used library resources at the universities in both Dundee and Sheffield. Keyword searches included hospital corridors, hospital beds, cleaning, ATP testing and hand bacterial transmission.

There is a wealth of literature relating both to the bacterial contamination of hospital beds and their subsequent cleaning within hospital environments (Sjoberg et al 2013 and Attaway et al 2012) and also the contamination of hospital equipment whilst within ward areas (Havill et al 2011). Research has also been completed highlighting an increased risk of bacterial and fungal transmission whilst hospital environments undergo restoration or rebuilding (Rollins 2013) – the trust involved in this study is currently undergoing a large rebuild and renovation project.

I have been unable to find any piece of work than pertains directly to the issue that beds whilst being stored on hospital corridors gain an increased bioload due to a combination of bacterial shedding from passers-by and the increased risk that the beds themselves are used to hold on to and touched by varying staff and visitor groups whilst in situ.

My concern in this instance is that these beds are put straight back into use once a ward has confirmation of the age of a patient being admitted without an extra clean once being moved from corridor to ward.