UK suppliers offer copper medical products and taps
Designed to help prevent infection
Product manufacturers in the UK and Europe are recognising rising market demand for antimicrobial copper touch surfaces – among them hospital ward equipment, door furniture and taps – and responding by offering product ranges designed to prevent infection.
UK-based door furniture specialist AS Hardware of Nottingham, for example, has launched a new medical range that includes IV drip poles and dressings trolleys in a silver-look copper.
AS Hardware’s director, Tony Ellis, said: “Having started with copper door furniture, we are now pleased to offer a wider range of products in a resilient, hard-wearing and aesthetically pleasing silver-coloured copper alloy. As we manufacture all goods in house, in the UK, we are flexible and have been able to respond quickly to market demand.”
Another UK firm, Pegler Yorkshire of Doncaster, offers hospital taps in brass – a copper alloy that benefits from the metal’s inherent antimicrobial quality – to help avoid recontamination after hand-washing.
The new products bear the Cu+ mark, which signifies that the products are capable of continuously killing pathogenic microbes even in between cleans.
Both firms are listed in the Product Directory at www.antimicrobialcopper.org