Infections are so common that they are an ever-present risk to the public. Fighting such infections is becoming continually more difficult as the resistance to antibiotics increases. For example, Hospital Acquired Infections - HAIs - increase treatment times, and in extreme cases lead to the death of a patient (an estimated 3.5% of patients who acquire a HAI are reported to die from their infection ~28,000/year in England). Furthermore, the costs incurred to manage a patient who acquires an HAI is around three times higher than that of managing a patient without a HAI. In England, the cost of treating patients infected whilst they are in a hospital is £2.7 billion p.a. and accounts for 7.1 million occupied bed days (corresponding to 21% of the annual number of all bed days across NHS hospitals in England) and 79,700 days of absenteeism among front-line health care professionals. To put the 7.1 million occupied hospital bed days attributable to HAIs into perspective, 5.3 million bed days were occupied by cancer patients in England in 2014; Lung disease in the UK was associated with an estimated 6.1 million occupied bed days in 2011 (BMJ Open 2020;10:e033367\. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-033367). Typically, the microbes and viral strains that cause such ill health are transmitted by a number of means, most of which originate from contact with a contaminated surface. It is possible to apply various antimicrobial treatments to surfaces and materials, however these are usually applied during the manufacturing stage and have a lower level of performance. Vigorous cleaning of surfaces has varying effectiveness and the chemicals used are damaging to the environment. The project will investigate the feasibility of creating a highly antimicrobial surface that can be applied to the existing built environment with relative ease and reduce the need for surface cleaning. If this can be successfully realised then there will be significant clinical and economic benefits which would accrue from a reduction of the impact that HAIs impose on patients, the NHS and society as a whole.

Society requires new solutions to reduce the probability of COVID-19 cross-infection as people resume their daily lives. However, common touch surfaces have been shown to contain significant viral and microbial contamination. The SARS-CoV-2 virus can be present on plastic and glass surfaces for several days and multiple users of the same touch surfaces creates a continuous biological load that leads to cross-contamination, despite periodic cleaning. A new form of transparent coating has been developed using vacuum coating that is extremely biocidal and will be combined with anti-reflection characteristics. These new anti-reflective, anti-viral coatings will be tested for two applications. The first application is to utilise these coatings for reusable face visors and goggles to afford clear vision with continuous self-cleaning effect and reduce skin irritation from chemical cleaning. The second application will test the coating on ticket machines used widely in transport and thus break chains of transmission arising from numerous people touching the same surface.