Clinics & Care Homes

How do you stop infection spreading in a clinic, a dental practice or a care home?

The places that treat illness are the places that spread it. A waiting room is thirty people who are unwell, breathing the same air for an hour. A dental surgery fills with aerosol every time the drill or the scaler runs, and the next patient is in the chair twenty minutes later. A care home dining room is forty frail people eating together three times a day, with staff moving between every room in the building.

Hand hygiene, cleaning and ventilation are the foundations and they stay. What they leave uncovered is the air, and the surfaces between cleans, whilst the room is full. A 222nm ceiling unit covers that. It runs with patients, residents and staff present, inside the occupational exposure limits, and the evidence for it is strongest in exactly these settings, because this is where the studies have been done. In July 2026 Ygia Polyclinic in Limassol became the first hospital in the Eastern Mediterranean to fit the ProTech 2.

Why these settings are hard

Healthcare-associated infections run to around 650,000 a year in NHS hospitals in England alone, costing the NHS over £2 billion. Flu, norovirus and COVID go round care homes every winter, and a norovirus outbreak closes a home to admissions for the duration. Dentistry has a problem of its own: every aerosol generating procedure puts a cloud of saliva and whatever is in it into the room, and since 2020 UK guidance has set a fallow time between patients that depends on the room's air changes, which is time the chair earns nothing. In all three settings the people in the room are the ones least able to shrug off an infection.

Ventilation is the usual answer and it is usually at its limit. Many practices and homes are in converted houses with no mechanical ventilation at all. Portable filters are noisy and only treat the air that passes through them. 254nm UV cannot be used with anyone in the room. Full chemical cleaning is impractical, expensive and needs help.

What the clinical studies found

  • A working dental clinic, 2025. Columbia University put 222nm lamps in a dental clinic that already had ten air changes an hour of filtered ventilation and ran them during normal clinics. Airborne bacteria fell by about 80% on top of what the ventilation was doing, worth another six and a half air changes an hour. In a surgery with the typical three air changes, the same lamps would cut the load by around 92%.

  • Occupied clinical areas, Denmark, 2025. Ceiling mounted 222nm fixtures in areas where staff and patients were present significantly reduced the bacteria on surfaces.

  • Twelve care homes, Denmark, 2026. Homes that fitted 222nm units in their common areas and residents' rooms prescribed fewer antibiotics over the following six months than the homes that did not. It was not a randomised trial, but it is one of the few studies anywhere that measured an outcome in people rather than germs in the air.

  • Intensive care, Taiwan, 2025. In a randomised trial, a 222nm device used on pressure sores reduced the bacteria in the wound and improved healing. A commentary in the same journal argued for its routine use in ICU wound care.

  • Endoscopy, Japan, 2023. Endoscopists working under 222nm during upper GI procedures picked up less bacterial contamination.

  • Dental spittoons, Japan, 2024. A krypton chloride lamp had a germicidal effect on spittoons, which are a mix of wet and dry surfaces and about the hardest thing in a surgery to keep clean.

  • A working room, Columbia, 2024. Four 222nm ceiling fixtures cut airborne infectious norovirus by 99.8% whilst staff worked underneath them all day.

  • Systematic review, 2025. Pooling the published trials, 222nm disinfected a wider range of pathogens than 254nm, with a better safety record.

  • Safety at work. Office workers under 222nm lamps for a year showed no effect on their eyes or eyelids, and healthy volunteers given 500 mJ/cm² on the skin, more than a hundred times our hourly dose, showed no harm. Read more about safety.

Where the units go

Clinics and GP surgeries. The waiting room first, then reception, then consulting and treatment rooms, then the staff room and corridors. One unit covers about 20 square metres under a 3m ceiling, so a typical waiting room takes two or three and a consulting room one.

Dental practices. The surgeries first, because that is where the aerosol is. Then the waiting room, the decontamination room and the staff areas. A unit in the surgery runs throughout the procedure and keeps running during the fallow time, adding its equivalent air changes to whatever the room has.

Care homes. Dining rooms and lounges first, where everyone gathers. Then corridors and the nurses' station and the staff room.

Hospitals. Waiting areas in outpatients and emergency departments, treatment rooms, bays, the staff room and the places people queue.

Reference: Ygia Polyclinic

In July 2026 Ygia Polyclinic in Limassol, Cyprus, installed the ProTech 2, the first hospital in the Eastern Mediterranean to use 222nm Far-UVC. Read the announcement.

What it does for the organisation

  • Fewer infections among the people you are there to look after, which is the point.

  • Fewer staff off sick. A practice or a home runs on a thin rota and an outbreak among staff is an outbreak among everyone.

  • Fewer chemicals in rooms full of people with chests and skin that react to them.

  • In dentistry, a more productive chair.

FAQ

Is it safe for patients who are already unwell, for the elderly, for children?

Yes. The protection comes from the outer layer of the skin and the tear film, which everyone has. No study has found harm to any group at the exposure limits, and the ProTech 2 keeps the room inside them. People with rare, severe light sensitivity should take the precautions they take with daylight. Read more about Safety.

Is it safe for staff who are under it all day?

Yes. A year of daily exposure for workers under 222nm lamps showed no effect on their eyes. The unit holds a full shift inside the published limits.

Does it replace cleaning?

No. It cuts the germs in the air and on surfaces between cleans. Surfaces still get cleaned, and after a vomiting incident they get cleaned properly, because dried matter shields the virus. The Far-UVC deals with the aerosol the incident put into the air.

Does it work on C. diff and other spores?

Spores are the hardest thing to kill with any light. A 2025 Columbia study showed 222nm inactivating spore-forming bacteria on cleanroom surfaces, at higher doses than for viruses. For C. diff, keep your existing protocols; Far-UVC is a continuous background reduction, not a terminal clean.

Does it work on norovirus?

Yes, with a higher dose than flu or coronavirus. In a working room it cut airborne norovirus by 99.8%. On surfaces it works well on wet virus and less well on dried or soiled surfaces, which is why cleaning after an incident still matters.

Can it shorten fallow time in dentistry?

The 2025 dental study measured 222nm as worth six and a half extra air changes an hour, and UK fallow time is set by air changes. Whether the guidance lets you count it is a question for your regulator.

Does it interfere with medical equipment?

It is a light source with a small controller, CE and UKCA certified, with the same electromagnetic compliance as any other ceiling fitting.

Will residents or patients notice it?

The light itself is invisible and silent. The unit looks like a ceiling fitting with a small status light which reassures people that it is operating. It is up to the operator to decide how much they want to publicise the additional protection that they are offering their staff and patients.

Can it go in a listed or converted building?

It needs a ceiling cut-out, mains and Wi-Fi, like a downlight. Where a ceiling cannot be cut, a surface mounting is possible.

The studies

  • Welch D, Buonanno M, Tang Z, et al. 222 nm far-UVC to inactivate airborne bacteria in an occupied dental clinic. Journal of Hospital Infection, 2025. doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2025.11.015

  • Mogensen EH, Jensen JT, Skaarup SH, et al. Ceiling-mounted far-UVC fixtures reduce the surface bioburden in occupied clinical areas. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 2025.

  • Kristensen MA, Mogensen EH, Nielsen SY, Holm CK. The potential effectiveness of far-UVC (222 nm) in preventing infections in long-term care facilities: a six-month nonrandomized controlled phase II trial. Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, 2026. doi.org/10.1017/ash.2026.10425

  • Tsai YT, Li RT, Lai HJ, Chang WP. Application of 222-nm ultraviolet radiation C device to heal wounds and control infections in pressure injuries in intensive care unit patients: a randomized controlled trial. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 2025.

  • Ingleman J. The next step in ICU pressure injury care: 222-nm ultraviolet-C to reduce microbial burden and support healing in pressure injuries. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 2026.

  • Fukutoku Y, Kikuchi H, Hoshi K, et al. The new 222-nm far ultraviolet-C lowers bacterial contamination to endoscopists during esophagogastroduodenoscopy. DEN Open, 2023. doi.org/10.1002/deo2.292

  • Tanimoto H, Ogawa Y, Nambu T, et al. Microbial contamination of spittoons and germicidal effect of irradiation with krypton chloride excimer lamps (Far UV-C 222 nm). PLoS One, 2024. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308404

  • Buonanno M, Kleiman NJ, Welch D, et al. 222 nm far-UVC light markedly reduces the level of infectious airborne virus in an occupied room. Scientific Reports, 2024. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-57441-z

  • Liu Q, et al. Disinfection efficacy and safety of 222-nm ultraviolet C compared with 254-nm ultraviolet C: systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Hospital Infection, 2025.

  • Petersen C, Urbano J, Hinzer A, et al. Susceptibility of microbes to far-UVC light (222 nm) on spacecraft and cleanroom surfaces. Microbiology Spectrum, 2025.

  • Fukui T, Niikura T, Oda T, et al. Exploratory clinical trial on the safety and bactericidal effect of 222-nm ultraviolet C irradiation in healthy humans. PLoS One, 2020. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235948

  • Sugihara K, Kaidzu S, Sasaki M, et al. One-year ocular safety observation of workers and estimations of microorganism inactivation efficacy in the room irradiated with 222-nm far ultraviolet-C lamps. Photochemistry and Photobiology, 2023. doi.org/10.1111/php.13710

  • Buonanno M, Ponnaiya B, Welch D, et al. Germicidal efficacy and mammalian skin safety of 222-nm UV light. Radiation Research, 2017. doi.org/10.1667/RR0010CC.1

  • Guest JF, Keating T, Gould D, Wigglesworth N. Modelling the annual NHS costs and outcomes attributable to healthcare-associated infections in England. BMJ Open, 2020.

Updated: October 2026