Decontamination Unit

Our Decontamination Unit, made up of the Hospital Sterilisation and Decontamination Unit (HSDU) and the Endoscope Decontamination Unit (EDU) provide sterilisation and decontamination services, to in-house departments and external clients, for surgical theatre and medical instruments.

The Hospital Sterilisation and Decontamination Unit (HSDU)

The Hospital Sterilisation and Decontamination Unit (HSDU) processes 37,000 trays of surgical instruments per year.

In addition to this, small procedure packs and supplementary items bring the total sterilised each year to 102,000.

The HSDU is operational seven days a week and provides a service to a total of 15 operating theatres.

The department also serves all wards, clinics and departments within the Trust, along with many GP practices within Norfolk and Suffolk, including St Stephens Gate medical practice and Newmedica eye health clinic & surgical centre in Norwich.

The decontamination and sterilisation process is undertaken by a team of more than 40 experienced staff.

The department operates six washer disinfectors, three sterilisers (Autoclaves), one low steam steriliser for robotic instruments and a computerised tracking system to ensure the traceability of all packs and items processed.

All this equipment is maintained, tested and validated to national standards.

The HSDU is fully accredited to ISO 13485:2016, EN ISO 13485:2016 and the Medical Device Directive 93/42/EEC.

Having a quality system means our team is trained to national standards (one-year in house training with four assessments) which means they are fully proficient in all the procedures, policies and operating instructions.

This means our patients can be assured that any surgical instrumentation that is used in any procedure/operation has been through the correct process and is sterile at the point of use.

Our performance is managed monthly by collating figures, looking at targets and any corrective/preventive actions required.

BSI is our accredited certification body who undertake planned and unannounced visits to the department to ensure we are working to national standards.

The Endoscope Decontamination Unit (EDU)