At Supporting Healthcare Heroes UK (SHH-UK), we believe healthcare workers and patients deserve safe, healthy indoor environments. Through our Freedom of Information (FOI) Project, we are gathering evidence about how English NHS organisations are addressing indoor air quality (IAQ) and airborne infection prevention within their infection prevention and control (IPC) guidance.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the devastating impact of airborne infections on healthcare workers, many of whom continue to live with Long Covid. Yet questions remain about whether lessons have been learned and whether healthcare settings are adequately prepared to reduce the risk of airborne infection transmission.
Our FOI project aims to better understand how English NHS Trusts are monitoring, managing, and improving indoor air quality as part of infection prevention and control.
We are submitting Freedom of Information requests to 12 English acute NHS organisations to explore
| Healthcare workers should not be placed at unnecessary risk of preventable infections at work. |
| Good indoor air quality is fundamental to safer healthcare environments. Evidence shows that improving ventilation, filtration, and airborne infection control can help reduce healthcare-associated infections, staff sickness absence, and workforce pressures. |
| For healthcare workers already living with Long Covid, preventing reinfections is particularly important. Safe air is not a luxury — it is a workplace safety issue. |
By gathering and analysing this information, we aim to:
The findings from this project will help inform SHH-UK’s wider #SafeAir4All campaign and our ongoing work to promote evidence-based infection prevention measures in healthcare settings.
We are keen to hear from healthcare workers about experiences of ventilation, indoor air quality, and infection prevention in healthcare settings.
If you have concerns, examples of good practice, or experiences you would like to share, please get in touch at info@shh-uk.org.
Together, we can help make safe air in healthcare as normal as clean water and safe food.
More than 1 in 10 of 1,496 US healthcare personnel reported the same moderate or severe symptom at both three and six months after COVID-19. Read the findings, limitations and what they may mean for SHH-UK readers.
Join SHH-UK’s online support groups for healthcare workers with Long Covid this October and November. Connect, chat and share with others.
A large US study of almost 2,000 children and adolescents found that those meeting the research threshold for probable Long COVID were more likely to experience difficulties with grades, attention and participation with friends.
