Gloves Off in Critical Care Implementation Guide

Disposable gloves are one of the biggest environmental hotspots in hospital, with more than 100 used per patient per day in intensive care. Despite this usage there are many circumstances where glove use is unnecessary.

Using gloves when you don't need to not only contributes to environmental damage but it also disrupts good hand hygiene practice.

Our Gloves Off in Critical Care Implementation Guide aims to give you the tools and guidance you need to drive a substantial and important change in your unit. We hope it changes the way you and your team use gloves in the course of your work, helping you to assess the need for them in a wide range of circumstances.

The guide is based on the work of the team at Wirral University Teaching Hospital (WUTH), and has been created by Sam Clark, the team at WUTH and our Sustainability Working Group.

It has also been endorsed by the British Association of Critical Care Nurses (BACCN) and Infection Prevention Society (IPS).