Cardiff (PRWEB UK) 15 October 2013 -- 15th October 2013 is Global Handwashing Day, an occasion designed to raise awareness about the benefits of handwashing with soap. Every year, over 200 million people are involved in celebrations for the event in over 100 countries around the world.
PHS Washrooms, the leading washroom services provider in the UK, believes that all businesses have the power to create healthier communities through handwashing with soap.
Keri Reynolds, Marketing Manager for PHS Washrooms, said: “Sickness absence costs employers £495 a year in direct costs for every worker employed. Since infections are often picked up in the workplace through poor hygiene standards, it is essential to promote correct hand washing among your staff.
“The number of germs on your fingertips doubles after using the toilet, and these germs can stay alive on your hands for up to three hours. Handwashing with soap is the most effective and inexpensive way to prevent diarrheal and acute respiratory infections from spreading through your business.”
Keri Reynolds explains that it takes at least fifteen seconds to wash your hands properly- around the same length of time as singing Happy Birthday twice.
She said: “To promote hand washing, make sure your employees have access to good quality soap- ideally an automatic dispenser. Automatic soap dispensers require no manual touch for them to function, decreasing the opportunity for cross-infection.
“All soap dispensers from PHS Washrooms are made with SteriTouch® antibacterial surface protection on all touchable areas as standard, which is proven to dramatically reduce the spread of pathogenic germs such as E.coli, salmonella and MRSA.
“And when soap and water are not available, hand sanitisers are the ideal solution to cleaning hands. PHS Washrooms is the exclusive washroom services provider of NO-GERMSTM alcohol-free hand sanitiser, the UK’s leading product in this category.
“With the annual sick rate for staff across all sectors of industry currently around 7 sick days per year, all businesses could benefit from encouraging their employees to wash their hands correctly. See the dedicated NHS website for more advice on hand hygiene.”
Notes for editors
About PHS
The PHS Group is a leading workplace services provider, and has traded in the UK since 1963. It has a diverse service portfolio aimed at improving work and leisure spaces, while making life much easier for facilities, building and people managers.
PHS really does ‘do more than you think’, providing products and services for:
• Crate rental and packaging
• Interior and exterior planting
• Laundry equipment and workwear
• Matting and flooring
• Records storage and management
• Shredding and recycling
• Testing and compliance
• Washrooms
• Waste management
• Water machines
• Workplace consumables
PHS provides these direct to UK companies, and also operates as a tier one supplier to the facilities management market, supporting the integrated service propositions of most of the major FMs.
The PHS Group’s annual turnover for the year ending March 2012 was £422 million. It employs around 5,000 personnel, operates from a wide network of 153 regional service branches, and takes care of over 250,000 customers at over 450,000 locations in the UK, Ireland, Holland, Belgium and Spain.
http://www.phs.co.uk/washrooms
Chloe Hibbert, PHS Washrooms, http://www.phs.co.uk/washrooms, +44 2920 809185, [email protected]
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