Skin health
Hand hygiene and caring for your hands has never been so important.
Hand hygiene and caring for your hands has never been more important. Washing your hands is one of the most effective ways to reduce the spread of microorganisms, protecting both yourself and your patients.
However, frequent hand washing can lead to and exacerbate dry skin issues including contact dermatitis – a painful, debilitating condition which may require nursing staff to be moved out of clinical areas due to the risk of infection.
Protecting your hands
To help maintain healthy skin:
- Apply hand moisturiser regularly, especially after washing and at the end of your shift.
- Your employer should have a skin health programme in place, including regular skin checks for staff at risk of work-related dermatitis.
The Skin Health Toolkit
- This free resource offers learning resources to support you in maintaining healthy skin. It is accessible to all – if you are not an RCN member, you will need to log in with a free account.
- RCN members and users with a free account can access the course by clicking the button below and logging in with their existing details.
The toolkit provides:
- flexible, accessible learning resources
- materials that can be revisited for future reflection and professional development
- for those undertaking the work-related dermatitis health surveillance competency assessment, including assessors.
When navigating the skin health toolkit, please use Google Chrome and not Internet Explorer.
Please note, due to the time taken for the Learning Management System to refresh its userbase, it may take up to 20 minutes after your first log in to access the course.
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Page last updated - 15/09/2025
