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Freedom of Information (FOI) Project: Investigating Safe Air in Healthcare
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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.
What is the FOI Project?
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
- Whether Trust IPC guidance explicitly recognises airborne transmission of respiratory viruses
- The use of ventilation and air filtration to reduce infection risks
- Whether CO₂ monitoring is used to assess ventilation effectiveness
- How indoor air quality is monitored, reviewed, and acted upon
- Staff access to appropriate respiratory protective equipment (RPE), including FFP2/FFP3 masks and PAPRs (powered air purifying respirators) where appropriate
Why does this matter?
| 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. |
What we hope to achieve
By gathering and analysing this information, we aim to:
- Identify examples of good practice across NHS organisations
- Highlight gaps and inconsistencies in current approaches
- Increase transparency around indoor air quality in healthcare
- Support evidence-based improvements to infection prevention guidance
- Advocate for safer working environments for healthcare workers and patients alike
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.
How you can help
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.
