FR ratings are one of the key principles underpinning the new National Standards for Healthcare Cleanliness 2021. FR stands for Functional Risk – essentially you have to make a decision about each room: what function does it serve, and what risk is associated with that function? When making that decision its useful to think of the two extremes then position your room in relation to them. So an FR1 rating is reserved for only the most sensitive areas – operating theatres for example. An FR6 on the other hand is what you’d give a filing cupboard. You can see that in the operating theatre there has to be little to no risk of infection, all surfaces must be sterile and patient safety is at stake. In the filing cupboard however, there’s no patient access and there is nothing in there that poses a major infection risk. Once you have these coordinates, you can steer your way towards assigning an FR rating to your chosen room.
The other thing to consider is public perception. This is explicitly set out in the Standards as being a valid consideration when assigning your FR ratings. Remember, the higher your area’s FR rating, the more frequently the elements in that area will be cleaned. Now, thinking about a corridor, you’d be justified in rating that as FR5 due to all the factors we just talked about. But let’s say this corridor is the main entrance for patients and visitors to your site. You want those people to feel confident and secure that they are entering a very clean setting. So you can bump that corridor up to an FR4 – now yes, it’s being cleaned more than is needed for infection prevention purposes, but the assurance that cleanliness provides is valuable. So as you can see, the FR ratings require careful thought and can be flexible to suit your individual needs as a site. For help with your FR ratings, please feel free to get in touch and we’ll do our best to support you.
