What makes Healthcare Cleaning so different?
Healthcare cleaning isn’t simply cleaning at a higher standard, it is a discipline of its own, operating in an environment where every decision carries risk, every surface matters, and every action directly contributes to patient safety. Through two focused sessions, specialists from Clean Hospitals take you inside the realities of clinical environments, reshaping assumptions and showing why “healthcare clean” is a discipline all its own.
Session 1: From Clean to Safe
Brett Mitchell explores why healthcare cleaning focuses on interrupting transmission, not just achieving visual cleanliness. In spaces filled with vulnerable individuals, invisible hazards, and ongoing re‑contamination, “healthcare clean” is fundamentally about safety.
Session 2: Complexity, Consequences, and Control
Martin Kiernan highlights the realities of cleaning in live clinical settings, where nothing stays static. Workflows shift minute by minute, and cleaners must adapt in real time to maintain safety in high‑risk, unpredictable environments.
These sessions offer meaningful takeaways and a renewed mindset for anyone involved in healthcare environments, facility services, cleaning teams, or safety roles.
Speakers
Martin has worked in infection prevention and control for 35 years in a variety of settings. He is a Visiting Professor at the Richard Wells Research Centre at the University of West London and Conjoint Fellow at Avondale University (New South Wales, Australia). Formerly he was Nurse Consultant and Deputy Director of Infection Prevention and Control at an NHS Trust in the North-West of England.
Martin is a past president of the Infection Prevention Society (IPS). In 2020 he was awarded honorary membership of the Healthcare Infection Society and in 2023 was awarded the Ayliffe Lifetime Achievement Award by IPS. He has published over 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals and is one of the co-hosts of the Infection Control Matters podcast. His research interests focus on the environment and healthcare-associated pneumonia.
Professor Brett Mitchell is an internationally renowned clinician researcher in the field of infection prevention and control. He is Editor-in-Chief of Infection, Disease in Health, with appointments at several universities and hospitals. Brett research provides high quality evidence to inform infection control practice, leading many clinical trials. He has over 180 peer reviewed publications and >$14m in grant funding. Prof Mitchell has received several prestigious national awards for his contributions, including an Order of Australia.
Paulo Brois, RN, DVM, MSN, is an operating room nurse at the Local Health Unit of Baixo Alentejo (Beja, Portugal) with a background in veterinary medicine. He also serves as an IPC link nurse in his department and is a guest lecturer at the Jean Piaget Algarve School of Health (Portugal). In addition, he is a member of the internal team of Clean Hospitals, contributing as a Scientific Collaborator.
He holds postgraduate qualifications in Infection Prevention and Control, is currently completing the European Committee on Infection Control (EUCIC) Infection Prevention and Control Certificate, and has been awarded Advanced Competence in IPC by the Portuguese Order of Nurses.
