Crutches being thrown away?

[Du1point8]

Broke leg Nov 2012 or so, got an aircast and some crutches to help me get back on my feet.

I have been a bit slack in giving them back, but friend had a baby 2 weeks ago, so upon visiting the maternity ward, thought I would nip into A&E and give back both items.

Got to A&E and thought I was doing my part by helping them out, only to be told that they don't reuse any pre used crutches or aircasts, I thought at least with the aircast the frame might be useable.

Nope, they are going to just throw them away and junk them, all thanks to a person suing the NHS after falling over whilst using used crutches, so now when patients go home they always get a new set and when returned they don't need them in the wards, they just junk them.

Its a bit ridiculous to just junk them, or was I being fed a line by the nurse?

[zeduffman]

I believe they are sent away in batches to be re-conditioned. From a staff point of view they are just thrown away, but they come back having been checked over/had the rubber feet replaced.

[mph1977]

Du1point8 said:

Broke leg Nov 2012 or so, got an aircast and some crutches to help me get back on my feet.

I have been a bit slack in giving them back, but friend had a baby 2 weeks ago, so upon visiting the maternity ward, thought I would nip into A&E and give back both items.

Got to A&E and thought I was doing my part by helping them out, only to be told that they don't reuse any pre used crutches or aircasts, I thought at least with the aircast the frame might be useable.

Nope, they are going to just throw them away and junk them, all thanks to a person suing the NHS after falling over whilst using used crutches, so now when patients go home they always get a new set and when returned they don't need them in the wards, they just junk them.

Its a bit ridiculous to just junk them, or was I being fed a line by the nurse?

in the past they were often sent away ( whether locally or externally) to be refurbished ... however in some cases the costs of reprocessing things to a good enough standard exceeds the cost of sending them to be recycled or disposed of and buying new - it's why more and more items of equipment used in healthcare are single use or single patient use .... ( if people are unsure of the difference between single use and single patient use please ask )

Edited by mph1977 on Monday 2nd February 10:35

[CoolC]

I broke and elbow a couple of years ago, and whilst visiting the physio dept afterwards, there was a box/container where pre-used crutches and walking sticks were returned.

There was a big sign over it telling people not to use crutches/walking sticks from this container as they needed to be assessed to ensure they are in good working order (or words to that effect)

So they are being re-used in Lincolnshire, but only once they are assessed, which makes sense.

[R1 Indy]

Interestingly the last time I was at my local tip (sorry recycling centre) there was a skip full of crutches which I found weird.

Maybe people just skip them at the tip rather than taking them back?...

Or the hospitals send them there?

[smithsi]

NHS is massively wasteful. Dad helps out a charity called physionet who send unwanted stuff to third world. All the stuff is perfectly ok, cashpayers money down the drain.

[Brother D]

So my mother had to see a nurse about a dressing a couple of times, and saw the nurse open a brand new pair of scissors, use them to cut the top of the packaging for a dressing. Then throw the scissors away.
This happened a couple of times and she questioned the nurse about it, and she said although there has been no contact between the patient, they have been instructed to throw the scissors away, to prevent any legal claims about cross-contamination, she said my mu, could take them home if she wanted them - so mum now has three pairs of very nice scissors...

Still I think someone needs to invent tearable packaging for dressings...

[Getragdogleg]

After I tried to dismantle my left hand with a 9 inch angle grinder I spent a little time in Hospital having it reassembled, they did a fine job and they used a decent selection of pretty well made hand tools, all of which got binned after they were used.

I asked why they were binned and was told it cost too much to wash and repack the kits so new ones were used every time.

I also asked if I could remove them from the bin and was told "no, but I cant stop you if I don't see you".

I have a nice pair of the pointiest tweezers ever and a little hook thing that they used to put my tendon back.

[sawman]

smithsi said:

NHS is massively wasteful. Dad helps out a charity called physionet who send unwanted stuff to third world. All the stuff is perfectly ok, cashpayers money down the drain.

on this particular issue its not wasteful by choice and doesnt just affect the NHS- private sector needs to take heed of the same policy. Many things that previously were used, cleaned and reused are now single use. Due to public liability issues items such as elbow crutches need to be cleaned (disinfected) and have worn out bits replaced (rubber feet, mechanism for adjusting height) tis may be done centrally in bulk, and so items need to be transported from wherever they are handed back. Obviously this all takes time and resource and so it is sometimes cheaper to chuck and replace - crutches are not very expensive items.

Sinlge use, disposable clinical instruments are a byproduct of the mad cow issue. Many years ago I was able to run a clinic all week with half a dozen sets of instuments which I could process myself in a benchtop autoclave. The kit was good quality and worked well with an expected lifetime of many years. I do not believe I passed mad cow or any other disease to anyone.
These days to to the same I would need upto 20 sets of single use items every day, this hardware would then need to be destroyed. I shudder to thing how big the pile of used kit would be over 10 years, not only that the disposable kit it almost always poor quality and barely up to the job.

[Gareth79]

Brother D said:

So my mother had to see a nurse about a dressing a couple of times, and saw the nurse open a brand new pair of scissors, use them to cut the top of the packaging for a dressing. Then throw the scissors away.
This happened a couple of times and she questioned the nurse about it, and she said although there has been no contact between the patient, they have been instructed to throw the scissors away, to prevent any legal claims about cross-contamination, she said my mu, could take them home if she wanted them - so mum now has three pairs of very nice scissors...

Still I think someone needs to invent tearable packaging for dressings...

I think it would just be an error in training and supervision there, rather than an actual rule. The packaging was probably easy to open by hand in the correct manner, I'd suspect it was them being lazy and cutting it open rather than tearing it properly. I imagine the correct way is to separate it at the seam, but they tried to tear it across the top or something. Even if it was an *actual* problem, I'm sure there are cheap sterile cutting tools that would do the job.

In in ideal world the instrument use would be tracked and they would say "jeez who is getting through a hundred pairs of scissors?" and it would be sorted, but perhaps they are just refilled without question...

[mph1977]

Gareth79 said:

Brother D said:

So my mother had to see a nurse about a dressing a couple of times, and saw the nurse open a brand new pair of scissors, use them to cut the top of the packaging for a dressing. Then throw the scissors away.
This happened a couple of times and she questioned the nurse about it, and she said although there has been no contact between the patient, they have been instructed to throw the scissors away, to prevent any legal claims about cross-contamination, she said my mu, could take them home if she wanted them - so mum now has three pairs of very nice scissors...

Still I think someone needs to invent tearable packaging for dressings...

I think it would just be an error in training and supervision there, rather than an actual rule. The packaging was probably easy to open by hand in the correct manner, I'd suspect it was them being lazy and cutting it open rather than tearing it properly. I imagine the correct way is to separate it at the seam, but they tried to tear it across the top or something. Even if it was an *actual* problem, I'm sure there are cheap sterile cutting tools that would do the job.

In in ideal world the instrument use would be tracked and they would say "jeez who is getting through a hundred pairs of scissors?" and it would be sorted, but perhaps they are just refilled without question...

99% of dressings are in peel open packets ... the 1% that aren't are occasional wierd and wonderfuls and ambulance / 'field' dressings which are packed a little more robustly than dressings designed for 'treatment room' ( or ward or home ) use ...