Protective clothing / gowning procedure
thanks
This is assuming a high care / high risk environment.
Step 1: Put on a mob cap of a distinctive colour to the high risk / high care area. If appropriate put on a beard snood (I say anything more than 1 days growth of stubble is beard snood terratory.)
Step 2: Take off shoes and put into some kind of rack / tidy.
Step 3: (Ideally if you have one) sit on a barrier and swing your legs over the barrier into the high care / risk side.
Step 4: Put on captive high risk / high care shoes or boots. (Some will argue here for a welly wash but I think they cause more problems than they solve).
Step 5: Wash hands fully using alcohol disinfectant as a terminal step (this is to protect the captive high care / risk coat).
Step 6: Put on a captive coat (note when cleaned, these should be returned individually plastic wrapped to maintain hygienic status).
Step 7: Wash hands again and use alcohol gel.
Step 8: Enter production.
On leaving a high care / risk area, these are the steps I'd put in:
Step 1: Remove high care / risk coat and hang up on dedicated hanging spaces or put in wash if dirty or the end of the shift.
Step 2: Remove captive shoes / boots and put back on hangers (should be sole side up so the cleanliness can be checked and they can be easily cleaned.)
Step 3: Sit on barrier and swing legs back over to other side.
Step 4: Remove mob cap and beard snood
Step 5: Put normal shoes or low risk shoes back on.
Obviously for low risk areas you don't have to go quite this far.
Amazing stuff (and an equally amazing memory)
Sounds like a cross between astronaut snacks and Monty Python leg swinging.
I'm interested to hear Soda's comments ?
Rgds / Charles.C
P.S., BTW, I apologise if I missed any details somewhere but I sincerely hope that everything went OK maternity-wise.
Nope just implemented this procedure in several factories now. It's kind of ingrained in me...
In every factory I've worked in, I've always put a photo series of each step with an employee demonstrating how to do it. In practice though, I find very few people look at these posters and it's a good idea to take each new employee through the steps but if you remember two things with high care / high risk changing that you need to protect the product from you and also need to protect the coat from you, it's easy to remember the order.
Annoyingly though 6 months after bringing in this changing procedure at work, I found someone changing in the wrong order. Who should it be but the guy I photographed doing it all step by step for the posters!
I have an established procedure, i was just hoping to see some pictorials/signage i could edit.
Thanks GMO.
I have an established procedure, i was just hoping to see some pictorials/signage i could edit.
All i can suggest is that you get your digital camera out, the most photogenic operator you can find, and pretend to be David Bailey!!
Thanks
Great information regarding change procedure. I'm in the process of changing my company's change procedure, hard hats are worn between high and low risk. Does anybody have any advice regarding the wearing of the same hard hat between low and high risk?
Thanks
It might depend on the auditor but in one site I worked in we had a non conformance raised on BRC because we had the same colour mob caps in high care and low care. Even though most people worked in one area only and the people who did cross areas (like Technical) changed their mob caps, they still raised it as a non conformance and we had to change our policy. So, if your auditor is anything like ours I would expect they would raise it and would expect you to have high risk and low risk hard hats. To be fair I would agree with that more than I agree with the mobcaps. I bet if you watch people in both of the areas they will touch their hats now and again to resite it on their head. If that's in low risk and they then do the same in high risk; well you can see the problem.
If it's a simple situation like ours was where there isn't much cross over between staff in high risk and low risk, a quick (and cheap) option could be to have them marked up with "high risk" and "low risk" until you can get the chance to get them colour coded for each area.
I just added an example to the gallery:
Gowning procedure
Im having trouble viewing this link Simon - any chance you could help me out? Keep getting a message saying I dont have permission even though im signed in.
Dear Sfbread,
Browser problem/settings? Seems to open ok in FFox 3.6 / Opera.
Rgds / Charles.C
I just added an example to the gallery:
Gowning procedure
Hi Simon,
I was browsing the internet for something like this that I need to produce to replicate a sign.. and these illustrations exactly the same, only there is not as many steps.
Where did you get this from do you remember? I'm hoping I wont have to re draw the signs, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Simon,
I was browsing the internet for something like this that I need to produce to replicate a sign.. and these illustrations exactly the same, only there is not as many steps.
Where did you get this from do you remember? I'm hoping I wont have to re draw the signs, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Sorry the person who designed that is long gone, only the flat image is available, which you can already access.
Regards,
Simon
I don't have a procedure with me (I'm on maternity leave) but I can talk you through it. It's often better to get photos of your site anyway though.
This is assuming a high care / high risk environment.
Step 1: Put on a mob cap of a distinctive colour to the high risk / high care area. If appropriate put on a beard snood (I say anything more than 1 days growth of stubble is beard snood terratory.)
Step 2: Take off shoes and put into some kind of rack / tidy.
Step 3: (Ideally if you have one) sit on a barrier and swing your legs over the barrier into the high care / risk side.
Step 4: Put on captive high risk / high care shoes or boots. (Some will argue here for a welly wash but I think they cause more problems than they solve).
Step 5: Wash hands fully using alcohol disinfectant as a terminal step (this is to protect the captive high care / risk coat).
Step 6: Put on a captive coat (note when cleaned, these should be returned individually plastic wrapped to maintain hygienic status).
Step 7: Wash hands again and use alcohol gel.
Step 8: Enter production.
On leaving a high care / risk area, these are the steps I'd put in:
Step 1: Remove high care / risk coat and hang up on dedicated hanging spaces or put in wash if dirty or the end of the shift.
Step 2: Remove captive shoes / boots and put back on hangers (should be sole side up so the cleanliness can be checked and they can be easily cleaned.)
Step 3: Sit on barrier and swing legs back over to other side.
Step 4: Remove mob cap and beard snood
Step 5: Put normal shoes or low risk shoes back on.
Obviously for low risk areas you don't have to go quite this far.
Good morning
I totally agree with this procedure but I was told that you shouldn't touch the high care area without your protective shoes.
I was told that we need to grab one boot from the raking on the other side of the bench, put it on and swing the leg across then put the other boot on.
I find this almost impossible, especially when you have 13 people changing at the same time. I also understand that the boots should be on the high care area side so if I cant touch the floor with my socks then how am I supposed to do this? :-)
Also, not sure if you can help me with this one. We wash our boots before entering production and when we leave. There's always some water on the floor. Would this be a problem with a BRC auditor?
Thank you in advance for any help clarifying this :-).
Yes, you're right and I have to apologise, I was instrumental in bringing in this change at some sites. The reason why is especially where high care changing is close to the outside of the site, it means that water can get tracked to the bench very easily meaning socks are a real possibility of transfer to high care. There are two alternatives, one is to grab the boots (still on the high care side as soon as you go in but without touching your feet to the floor. This, as you say, is tricky. So an alternative is to use overshoes just over your socks not touching your feet down on the low risk side but then allowing them to touch down on the high care side but wearing the overshoes inside the wellies. I hope that makes sense?
If your high care area is further away from the outside, then this may be a step too far but I implemented this in some very high risk plants and it does help.
Yes, you're right and I have to apologise, I was instrumental in bringing in this change at some sites. The reason why is especially where high care changing is close to the outside of the site, it means that water can get tracked to the bench very easily meaning socks are a real possibility of transfer to high care. There are two alternatives, one is to grab the boots (still on the high care side as soon as you go in but without touching your feet to the floor. This, as you say, is tricky. So an alternative is to use overshoes just over your socks not touching your feet down on the low risk side but then allowing them to touch down on the high care side but wearing the overshoes inside the wellies. I hope that makes sense?
If your high care area is further away from the outside, then this may be a step too far but I implemented this in some very high risk plants and it does help.
Thanks :-) overshoes are a good idea. It will be a struggle to get people to follow the procedure but I’ll do my best :-)
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