The importance of hygiene in hospitals is well known. It is vital in both functional and bedded areas and in terms of the instruments used. Among other things, before newly developed instruments are permitted to be used in hospitals, it is important to demon-strate that they can be cleaned in accordance with applicable provisions as part of CE certification. And as instruments are becoming increasingly smaller and more sophisti-cated, the requirements for cleaning equipment are also becoming more and more complex. For larger robots, it is vital to ensure that castors and cable hoists can also be cleaned easily. Minute cavities in nano instruments, where the smallest quantities of dirt or bacteria must not be allowed to accumulate, are particularly complicated. As a testing laboratory certified to DIN EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005 and directives 93/42/EEC and 90/385/EEC, SMP GmbH may now determine whether and how instruments and cleaning devices are suitable for practical applications and can therefore be licensed. “SMP GmbH is thus officially a conformity assessment centre,” explains Managing Director Dr. Ludger Schnieder. “Our customers attach great importance to this quality feature.”

Each year, SMP sends several tens of thousands of haemostats contaminated in a defined way to hospitals in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as part of regular checks to ensure cleaning machines at hospitals function in accordance with applicable provisions. They are cleaned with the hospitals’ own equipment and – ideally – returned to SMP clean. This procedure is described in a joint guideline published in 2004. Although Dr. Schnieder can issue most hospitals with a good report, there is no doubt that monitoring to ensure hygiene is observed and will remain essential. “A high standard of hygiene can only be maintained if an official testing centre regularly verifies that equipment is cleaned in accordance with applicable provisions and if responsibility doesn’t lie solely with hospitals,” he stresses.