Switching to reusable blood pressure cuffs will produce savings for environment and health board

PICTURED: Occupational Health colleagues Sara Fender (left) and Olivia Seaton with the reusable blood pressure cuffs.

Swansea Bay is taking steps to significantly reduce the waste it produces by finishing the general use of single use blood pressure cuffs – saving the emissions equivalent of 22 car journeys around the world every year.

From today (February 9), the health board is switching to reusable blood pressure cuffs across all departments.

Swansea Bay has been responsible for more than half of single use cuffs throughout Wales but that will end with this switch.

Purchasing reusable cuffs will also save over £192,000 by reusing equipment instead.

A number of services across the health board have already been using the reusable cuffs without any evidence of harm to patients. Now they are being rolled out everywhere.

PICTURED: The reusable blood pressure cuffs will cut the health board's carbon emissions and save money.

It will stop the health board producing over 118 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) a year – the same as driving over 560,000 miles in a car.

Elana Owen, Consultant Anaesthetist and one of three Sustainable Clinical Leads within the health board, said: “It has been recognised that single use items have been increasingly introduced into clinical practice over the last few years. This has resulted in significant costs in terms of procurement and disposal costs, as well as a negative impact to our environment.

“Blood pressure cuffs were once commonly re-used but are now commonly found to be disposable across our health board.

“Exemption criteria and suitable cleaning methodology have been developed to support this move by Infection Prevention and Control Team (IPCT), and the Sustainability Clinical Leads.

“The implementation of this change will reduce costs, waste and environmental impact, without negatively impacting patient care.”

The only exemption to the change will be patients who have been diagnosed with a high consequence infectious disease (HCID); these are acute infectious diseases with the ability to spread, typically have a high case fatality rate, may not have effective prophylaxis or treatment, are difficult to recognise and detect rapidly, and require specific system responses for safe and effective management.  

For barrier nursed patients, reusable cuffs will be used but the cuff will remain with the patient for the duration of their stay, being disinfected after each use and again on discharge of the patient.

The change to reusable blood pressure cuffs has been approved by IPC.

Delyth Davies, Head of Nursing in IPC, said: “Whilst it is possible for microbes to contaminate blood pressure cuffs, there has been no evidence that these cuffs have been solely responsible for transmission of infection.

“Staff can prevent the risk of infection to patients by ensuring the cuffs are decontaminated effectively, between each patient use, diligently following the manufacturer’s instructions for cleaning and disinfecting.”