Multi-layered apron may cut MRSA risk

An apron with layers that can be "peeled away like an onion" could be a simple way of cutting hospital infections according to Kuldeep Bangal, a London trauma surgeon who has designed the item.

Currently staff have to change single-layered aprons in between seeing patients, which can be time-consuming. Bangal believes that her version will prove much easier to use. She proposes that it should have 10 layers, including the base, so that it will not be too thick for people to move around in, and added "there would be one neck and one back tie, and a layered front bib attached by tabs." It is based on the same principle as putting alcohol gels at the end of patients' beds in order to reduce the need for staff to walk to and from a basin in between each patient. Bangal, who has patented her idea and prepared a prototype, did express some concerns: "staff compliance can be a real problem. It's not that staff aren't concerned about hospital infection, but it can take 40 seconds to take an apron off and put another one on. For someone like a phlebotomist or a nurse moving from patient to patient in an intensive care unit, that can take around five minutes for every 10 patients. "While hospitals do have apron-dispensers, these can be positioned away from patients or empty, and staff may not have time to seek out new supplies. The success of putting alcohol gels at the end of beds shows that if something is easier to do more people will do it and that infection rates will consequently fall." The apron is one of the entries in this year's Medical Futures Innovations Awards.