What Irish Infection-Control Guidance Actually Says About Curtains

You’ll see “HPSC-compliant” used loosely across the curtain cleaning industry, often attached to a specific number of months. We checked HPSC’s own published guidance directly rather than relying on secondary claims, and this page sets out exactly what it does and doesn’t say.

What HPSC Is

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre is Ireland’s national public health agency for the surveillance and control of communicable disease, operating under the HSE. It publishes national infection prevention and control (IPC) guidance that facilities are expected to align with — but it does not maintain a curtains-and-soft-furnishings guideline as a standalone document.

What HPSC Guidance Actually Says About Curtains

HPSC’s published guidance addresses curtains specifically in the context of outbreaks and terminal cleaning — the deep clean carried out after a resident with a confirmed infection is discharged or an outbreak is declared. In that context, items including curtains that have been used by an infected resident should be laundered at a minimum of 50°C, or an equivalent validated method used where fabric can’t tolerate that temperature.

That’s a real, specific, sourced requirement — but it’s an outbreak-response measure, not a routine calendar schedule for curtains that haven’t been near a known infection.

What HPSC Guidance Doesn’t Say

• No routine interval. HPSC does not publish a “clean curtains every X months” figure for normal, non-outbreak conditions.
• No curtain-specific document. There is no standalone HPSC guideline dedicated to curtains or soft furnishings — what exists is folded into broader environmental cleaning and outbreak guidance.
• No list of named pathogens for curtains specifically. General IPC literature discusses organisms like MRSA and C. difficile in the context of environmental surfaces broadly; HPSC’s curtain-specific text doesn’t itself enumerate a pathogen list.

If you’ve seen a specific monthly figure attributed to HPSC elsewhere — including, previously, on this site — it wasn’t accurate. We’ve corrected it here and across our own content.

Where the Actual Routine Interval Comes From

The current published national benchmark for a routine interval is National Clinical Guideline No. 30 (Department of Health, 2023), Volume 2, Tables 39–40. It places long-term care in the low risk band and sets bed curtains at change or clean twice yearly as a minimum, with escalation during an outbreak. In every risk band, a resident with an MDRO or other infectious disease triggers a change or clean on discharge — a distinct requirement, separate from the routine schedule.

Minimums are floors, not targets. Curtain Care Ireland’s own recommended programme is more frequent than the national minimum, because published research shows curtains are substantially recontaminated within two weeks of cleaning — see the peer-reviewed studies on our evidence page. Our recommendation:

• Every 3–4 months for resident bedrooms, as a routine programme
• On discharge of any resident with an MDRO or other infectious disease, or after any known contamination event
• After any redecoration or deep clean

Whichever interval a facility sets, the documentation matters as much as the number: a written record of when curtains were last cleaned, the method used, and who carried it out.

What HIQA Inspectors Actually Look For

Regulation 27 (Infection control) requires that a centre’s procedures are “consistent with the standards for the prevention and control of healthcare associated infections published by the Authority” — it doesn’t name curtains or a frequency. In practice, when curtain findings do appear in published HIQA inspection reports, the pattern is consistent: inspectors record what they observe (soiling, or the absence of a documented schedule), and the accepted remedy in every case we reviewed was a documented cleaning schedule — never a specific interval. See our review of real HIQA findings on curtains for the actual quotes and links to the source reports.

A Not Compliant or Substantially Compliant judgment under Regulation 27 requires the provider to submit a compliance plan showing how and when the issue will be resolved — not a fixed fine or an automatic closure, but a documented, time-bound commitment that a follow-up inspection can check against.

How Curtain Care Ireland Approaches This

• Method: Our Deep Heat process — a low-moisture, controlled-heat treatment applied on the rail
• Documentation: Compliance certificate issued for every treatment, recording date, areas covered, products used, and method
• Frequency reminders: We maintain records of your treatment dates and will contact you when your next scheduled clean is due
• In-situ process: Curtains remain hanging throughout — no need to remove, launder, and rehang

See our full nursing home curtain cleaning service for how this applies in practice.

If you are unsure whether your current curtain cleaning programme is adequately documented, contact us for a free assessment or call 01 234 6333. We cover all 26 counties.

Last reviewed: August 2026. If you believe anything on this page is inaccurate, tell us and we will correct it — CustomerSupport@CurtainCare.ie.