German group introduces new certification for laundry service providers

The German Certification Association for Professional Textile Services has introduced the RAL Quality Certification Mark, RAL-GZ 992/4 Clothing of Care Home Residents, to help ensure hygiene standards for personal laundry from care home residents.

Currently, German regulations only require specific hygiene standards be met for the processing of certain types of laundry from care homes, such as bed linens and towels. For residents’ personal laundry, care homes or their laundry service providers are responsible for defining and maintaining hygiene standards.

Most care providers do not find it practical to process their residents’ personal laundry individually, raising concerns about the spread of infectious diseases. The standards set forth by the RAL Quality Certification Mark will help address these concerns by specifically defining requirements for handling personal laundry from residents.

RAL certification requires laundry service providers to follow stringent protocols, including detailed laboratory tests on water samples from the laundry facilities and microbial examinations of employees’ hands and the linens and clothing they process. In addition, certified laundry facilities have to have competent hygienists and qualified textile experts available at all times.

Source: German Certification Association for Professional Textile Services