Most people think of the washroom at work as a place of brief solace, the place where some of life’s problems are thought through and a moment of peace can be found. In fact, as Mike Burton, Managing Director of Albany Hygiene Facilities, based in Rayleigh, points out, the washroom can be a downright dangerous place if it is not designed to inhibit the transmission of bacteria, viruses and moulds, and if it is not maintained properly to keep anti-infection measures at their peak of efficiency.

Albany, one of Britain’s leading suppliers of washroom services, has spent years investing in an independent research programme that is constantly seeking new and better data on the risks of cross infection that washrooms inevitably bring to a workplace and how best to counter those risks. Albany works closely on a day-to-day basis with both academic and industry partners to benefit from their research and knowledge and the company’s close co-operation with the product design faculty at the UEL (University of East London) has been essential to the development of a range of environmentally sustainable washroom products.

For the last three years Albany has been working with Dr Ron Cutler of Queen Mary, University of London, constantly testing and evaluating the most effective hygiene strategies and systems.

“We have proved in practice that these relationships enable us to develop environmental, microbiological and product design expertise that we could never have achieved working in isolation” explained Mike Burton. “Constantly updated scientific understanding enables us to recommend the latest independent hygiene advice and provide commerce and industry with the most effective hygiene solutions”.

Latest academic partnership

Albany plans shortly to employ a full-time bioscience post-graduate, mentored by Dr Cutler, under the Knowledge Transfer Partnership Initiative. With this graduate working full-time for three years under this scheme, Albany will gain scientific insight and hygiene advice on a daily basis and will be able to pass the benefit of greater understanding of hygiene management on to the company’s customers.

Albany Hygiene Facilities is a company that has expanded and diversified to a formidable degree from comparatively humble beginnings as a family laundry business a hundred years ago. Constantly innovating and developing new applications within the broad field of hygiene technology, the company nonetheless is an efficient objectives-driven organisation, recruiting high quality graduates, training staff to help companies keep infection at bay with the latest washroom services technologies and currently running a nationwide programme to teach children about infection and the importance of cleaning their hands.

Mike Burton has launched its mission to raise awareness of the hidden dangers within Britain’s washrooms and to develop scientifically valid solutions to nullify those dangers, with the purest of business intentions – and yet, just under that buzz of profit-orientated fervour, there is a constant academic drive to find better scientific solutions and to help to create a safer workplace. One senses that Mike Burton would be just as happy running an organisation whose objectives were concerned only with blue skies research.

A short film about the dangers lurking in washrooms can be seen at www.albanyfacilities.com

Author Bio: Albany facilities provides its customers with expert hygiene consultancy and washroom solutions throughout the UK. They impart adept advice and knowledge on sustainable washroom equipment, design, maintenance and education. Their mission is to raise hygiene standards by supplying cutting edge commercial washroom equipment.

Category: Medicines and Remedies
Keywords: washroom facilities, hygiene consultancy, washroom services, hygiene advice