Cleaning public areas, consulting rooms and high-touch surfaces

A practice can look tidy while still posing infection risks. High-touch surfaces are often overlooked because they are everyday parts of the workflow rather than obvious clinical equipment.

High-touch areas to include

• Reception and retail: counters, card machines, pens, clipboards, tablets, waiting chairs, frame display areas and mirrors.
• Consulting rooms: chair arms, desk edges, door handles, keyboards, mice, phones, light switches and patient-facing surfaces.
• Optical equipment touchpoints: chin rests, head rests, joysticks, forehead bands, trial frames, occluders and measuring tools where local procedure assigns cleaning to support staff.
• Shared facilities: staff rooms, toilets, sinks, handles, lockers and cleaning storage areas.

Good cleaning needs a system

Staff should know what is cleaned, how often, which product to use, who is responsible and how completion is recorded. Clutter, damaged surfaces and poor storage reduce cleaning reliability. Report problems rather than working around them.

Do not improvise with unlabelled spray bottles, mixed products or products used outside their instructions. Cleaning chemicals are controlled by COSHH and must be used according to product labels and local procedures.

High-touch cleaning should follow the path people actually touch, not just the item that looks most clinical.