Awareness About Sharps Disposal Leads to Significant Improvement in Healthcare Safety: an Audit of Compliance in the National Health Service During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Needle-stick injuries (NSIs) pose serious health risks and can transmit blood-borne diseases (BBDs), such as hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, and human immunodeficiency virus from the patient to the staff member. The purpose of this study was evaluation of appropriate and safe disposal of sharps within a 730-bed acute district general hospital (DGH) in the UK. One hundred sharps containers were audited in November 2019 to assess whether they complied with the health and safety regulations across surgical, medical, and acute wards. Meetings with the appropriate staff members were organised and posters placed throughout the hospital to raise awareness. One hundred twenty-five sharps containers were re-audited in July 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic to ascertain if there was an improvement. In November 2019, a total of 56% of sharps containers were overfilled and hence were non-compliant with safety regulations. A re-audit performed in July 2020 found only 17% of sharps containers to be overfilled, which was a significant improvement (p = 0.0064) in practice. We noted that the overall compliance improved from being 44% in 2019 to 82.64 in the year 2020. This audit showed a significant improvement in the compliance of sharps bin containers in a DGH, signifying the increased awareness. It is necessary to audit sharps management regularly to accurately assess practice and prevent exposure to BBDs.