Caring at Home
Change gloves between every separate care task, and always between personal care and anything else. A clear, practical guide for family carers.
OMS Clinical Team
Product Specialists
Change your gloves between every separate care task, and always between personal care and anything else. A fresh pair for each task is the single clearest rule to follow. If you are moving from helping someone wash to making a cup of tea, the gloves come off and your hands get washed in between.
If you have found yourself wondering whether you are doing this right, you are asking a good question. It comes up constantly among family carers, and worrying about it is a sign you are taking it seriously, not a sign you are getting it wrong.
The mistake worth avoiding is wearing one pair through a whole visit. Gloves protect by being a barrier you remove and replace. Once they have touched something contaminated, they carry that with them to everything else you touch.
This surprises people. Gloves are not a substitute for handwashing, they sit alongside it. The NHS advice is to wash your hands before putting gloves on and again after taking them off, every time. Hands can become contaminated while you remove a glove, and small unnoticed tears are common.
If you only remember one thing, make it this: gloves off, hands washed, before you touch anything clean.
Almost never at home. Double gloving is used in specific clinical procedures. If you find yourself reaching for a second pair because the first feels too thin or keeps tearing, that is a sign the gloves are the wrong fit or the wrong quality rather than a sign you need two.
Changing gloves properly uses more of them than most people expect. Someone providing personal care several times a day can easily use six to ten pairs daily. Buying a small retail pack means either frequent trips to the shop or, worse, making a pair last longer than it should.
Our home care essentials selection includes powder-free nitrile gloves in every size, in the same box sizes we supply to care homes, so you are never rationing them.
Caring at Home
