Outsourced decontamination and sterilisation services specialist, IHSS, has introduced new services ‘to meet the changing needs of the healthcare sector for flexible endoscope reprocessing’.
The company explained: “The recent revisions to HTM 01-06, covering flexible endoscope decontamination, state that certain complex devices, and especially choledochoscopes, should be sterilised
Their construction requires the use of a specialised low temperature process, as they cannot withstand traditional steam sterilisation. Unfortunately, with only a few hospitals having ready access to such facilities, hospital managers have either discontinued use of these instruments, or utilised just a high-level disinfection process, contravening HTM guidelines. Their only other option is the slow, relatively expensive, outsourced sterilisation process based on ethylene oxide gas.”
In response, IHSS has launched a new ‘safe, quick, and cost-effective’ HTMcompliant low temperature sterilisation process, ‘based on the latest hydrogen peroxide ( H202) technology’, and developed for devices including choledochoscopes, ureteroscopes, and flexible intubation endoscopes.
