EU Directive on Prevention of Sharps Injuries – Is Your Hospital Ready?

The EU Directive 2010/32/EU1 regarding new healthcare worker safety standards must be implemented into national law by EU member states by May 2013. The directive refers specifically to reducing sharps injuries through the use of safety-engineered medical devices, namely syringes and catheters with built-in methods to shield or retract the sharp after use.

A new report released by MindMetre Research shows that the majority of NHS Trusts are set to increase their use of safety-engineered medical devices, and a third of them have already improved healthcare worker safety by moving to a partial or total ‘safety device only’ policy.

Despite sharps injuries being the most frequent occupational hazard faced by healthcare workers (more than 100,000 sharps injuries occur each year in the UK alone), almost half of the hospitals surveyed by MindMetre do not have any form of ‘safety devices only’ policy currently in place. The survey showed that most healthcare organizations are becoming more aware of the requirements of the soon to be mandatory legislation, however a third of NHS Trusts do not have any plans in place to convert to the use of safety devices.

BD offers a wide range of safety-engineered medical devices to protect healthcare workers against sharps injuries and prevent exposure to blood-borne pathogens. BD safety products comply with the forthcoming legislation for the prevention and elimination of sharps injuries to patients and healthcare professionals.

The BD safety range covers blood collection, infusion therapy and hypodermic injections, as well as a variety of sharps disposal systems.

For phlebotomists, the blood collection range includes the BD Vacutainer® Eclipse™ Blood Collection Needle with a build-in safety shield which locks permanently into place; and the BD Vacutainer® Safety-Lok™ Blood Collection Set which features single-handed safety activation with irreversible locking mechanism.

For more information on BD’s entire safety range, please see the company’s new safety website (http://www.bd.com/europe/safety/).


¹Council Directive 2010/32/EU, Official Journal of the European Union, L134/71