Hospital patients should ask staff to wash

LONDON, July 18 (UPI) -- Hand hygiene in hospitals increases significantly when patients ask doctors and nurses if they've washed before an examination.

Clean hands are the key to reducing hospital acquired infections, Britain's chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, said in his annual report.

Hospital patients should be given alcohol hand gel and then ask doctors and nurses to use it before examinations and procedures, Donaldson said.

When patients challenged doctors and nurses and asked them if they had washed their hands, compliance with hand hygiene rose by 50 percent, The Telegraph of London reported Wednesday.

Even in the cleanest hospitals compliance with hand hygiene rules is rarely above 60 percent and up to 75 percent of all patients feel uncomfortable asking staff to wash, the report said.

"Good hand hygiene should be a natural reflex for healthcare professionals, yet it no longer has the status it once had," Donaldson said.