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CENTRAL SYRINGE STERILISING UNIT
A Central Syringe Sterilising Unit was established in Leyton as a pilot scheme for
Essex County Health Services and began operating on the 4th October, 1960.
As a result of advances in medical knowledge there are an increasing number of
preventive inoculations available for use in a community. Medical treatments which
require to be given by injections are also increasing.
These are great advances and their proper implementation is resulting in improved
health of the community. It does mean, however, that a large and increasing number of
persons are receiving injections.
It is important that the injected material should not be contaminated with diseaseproducing
organisms during the injecting procedure.
It is essential that the syringes and needles which are used are clean and sterile.
The controlled sterilisation of the large numbers of needles and syringes which are
used in the local authority's health service requires detailed organisation, and it was
recommended that a central syringe sterilisation unit be set up to provide clean and
sterile syringes and needles for use in the health services operating under the Leyton
Health Area Sub-Committee.
Medical Considerations
Needles and syringes before use must be sterilised to remove any pathogenic
organism which might cause local disease at the site of the injection (e.g.abscess
formation) or more generalised disease (e.g. septicaemia).
In 1945 the Medical Research Council's War Memorandum was published and, in the
light of what was then known, suggested that mass inoculations might be done by changing
the needle for each new patient but using the same syringe for more than one.
A working party of the Medical Research Council indicated, in the February, 1960,
issue of the Monthly Bulletin of the Ministry of Health and the Public Health Laboratory
Service, that the next edition of the Memorandum on sterilising syringes will certainly
recommend the use of a separate syringe and needle for each inoculation; it will also
emphasise that the safest syringes and needles are those produced by a well-organised
central syringe service.
The reasons for these recommendations are based on the unmeasured but wellestablished
risk of post-inoculation hepatitis. Between two and five months after
inoculation with a syringe or needle that has previously been used for someone else
without being subsequently sterilised, a person may develop hepatitis (a form of
jaundice). The practice of using a clean, sterile needle for each person to a syringe
used for inoculating 5, 10 or 20 patients, does not eliminate the risk of hepatitis.
It has been shown that the small amount of fluid which always enters a needle in the
tissues will be aspirated on to the nozzle of the syringe when the needle is taken off.
In this way the whole contents of the syringe are likely to become infected.
Part of the premises at the rear of 280 High Road were converted and adapted for
use as a central syringe sterilising unit.
During 1960 it provided sterile syringes and needles for all the services
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