Care guide · Scrubs & clinical kit
Plenty of clinical and care staff launder their own uniforms — which makes the household washing machine part of the infection-control chain. The routine that keeps it sound is short, specific and worth doing exactly.
The context
Most UK care providers and many NHS settings permit home laundering of everyday uniforms — within rules: change at work, transport sealed, wash separately at the stated temperature, dry promptly. The steps above are that consensus routine. Two hard exceptions sit outside it: visibly contaminated items (blood, body fluids) follow the employer's contaminated-linen process rather than a domestic machine, and theatre scrubs and specialist kit are industrially laundered, full stop.
The buying side makes the routine possible: scrubs or tunics rated for 60 °C washing, and enough sets that washing after every shift doesn't break the rotation.
The rules
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Wash uniforms as their own load | Mix with household laundry — ever |
| Use the hottest label-permitted cycle (60 °C benchmark) | Quick-wash a clinical uniform cool because it 'looks clean' |
| Dry completely the same day | Leave damp kit sitting in the drum |
| Follow employer policy where it's stricter | Home-launder visibly contaminated items |
| Buy garments rated for the policy wash | Buy pretty scrubs that cap out at 40 °C |
Why each rule exists
Questions
Usually yes for everyday uniforms, within policy rules: change at work, transport sealed, wash as a separate load at the stated temperature (60 °C is the common benchmark), and dry promptly and completely. Contaminated items and theatre kit are the exceptions — they go through the employer's process.
The widely used benchmark for uniform laundering is a 60 °C wash with detergent — temperature and chemistry working together. Buy scrubs and tunics rated for it; a garment capped at 40 °C can't follow the policy it's worn under.
Separation is the core control: it keeps clinical soils from circulating through household laundry and lets the uniform load run at the right temperature and cycle. It's the difference between laundering and just washing.
When the whites or scrubs are done, replacements ship fast — boxed quantities for rotation.