One area that is vital in hospitality but doesn’t get many headlines is laundry and linen provision. We’ve all seen programmes where people are pulling beds apart looking for stains and hairs, and the glee if they find them.

Hotel housekeeping and laundry operations handle thousands of textile items every week. While hotels are not clinical environments, adopting healthcare-aligned standards significantly reduces infection risks, protects staff, and enhances guest confidence.

Before we even think about laundering however we should consider the quality of the linen to be laundered. Fibre type and thread count is an indicator of both comfort and durability; both must be considered. Will we be laundering Egyptian cotton which has softness but is durable, or ring spun combed cotton for a more luxurious finish? Or simply polycotton.

These linens must withstand high temperature washing and frequent cycles, all with the purpose of our customers experiencing a great night’s sleep. Careful selection of a linen provider is essential. Requirements will vary from hotel to hotel and strong relationships allow linen suppliers to understand client needs, ensure reliability and build lasting trust.

Let’s look at both the procedure and process for safely managing linen, bedding, and decorative textiles.

Categorising hotel laundry: A smart, safe system

Healthcare settings divide linen into clean, used, and infectious. This model translates effectively into hospitality and can help prevent cross-contamination. Clean linen covers freshly laundered items ready for guest use. Used linen are those items which have been slept in, touched, or used during a guest stay. Potentially infectious linen involves items recovered from rooms where a guest has been unwell such as vomiting, diarrhoea, suspected or blood contamination. Ideally these should be placed directly into water-soluble bags at the point of removal to prevent airborne contamination.

***The variety of items on beds means we process linens with different cleaning needs and schedules***

The Gold Standard for storage and handling

Linen should be stored in a clean, dry, cool area within enclosed cupboards or covered shelving, kept off the floor, and protected from dust and moisture. Within healthcare it is identified that clean linen must not be stored in plastic delivery bags as plastic traps moisture, encouraging the growth of ‘Bacillus cereus’, a bacteria that can survive the laundering process.

Separation of clean and used linen

Clean and used linen should be physically separated during collection, transport, sorting and storage. This prevents cross-contamination and protects both staff and guests.

Breaking the chain of infection

Housekeeping and laundry staff must follow infection-control precautions when handling used or potentially infectious linen. PPE, such as disposable gloves and aprons should be worn, with additional PPE if bodily fluids are present. Do not shake, sort, or rinse used linen in guest areas. Shaking disperses micro-organisms into the air.

Do not place used linen on floors, chairs, or unprotected trolleys. Always perform handwashing after removing gloves and use soap and water, not alcohol gel, when dealing with gastrointestinal illness such as norovirus.

Handling hotel bedding

This includes multiple textile layers, each with different hygiene risks. Applying healthcare-aligned standards ensures safe handling while protecting textile quality and the operative. Duvet covers should be treated as used linen after every stay, removed without shaking and bagged immediately without placing on floors or furniture.

Duvets are normally classed as clean reusable bedding unless visibly soiled or from an illness-affected room.

They require scheduled deep cleaning every three to six months, but if contaminated, treated as potentially infectious and bagged in water-soluble bags. Bed throws and runners are high-touch but often overlooked. They should be treated as used linen after every stay in higher-end hotels and as a minimum washed weekly. If a guest has been unwell, use water soluble bags for transportation and laundering.

When to treat bedding as ‘potentially infectious

Upgrade to infectious-linen handling if a guest has vomited or had diarrhoea, there is evidence of bodily fluids, Norovirus or flu is suspected or housekeeping notes indicate illness. In such cases wear PPE, bag items in water-soluble bags at the point of removal and perform soap-and-water handwashing after glove removal.

**Looking after towels starts with how we store and later handle them when requiring laundering**

Professional Training in consistent standards

In healthcare, staff complete structured qualifications such as the NCFE Level 2 Certificate in the Prevention and Control of Infection. Hotels adopting similar structured training – whether accredited or in-house – can transform their teams into a professional infection-control workforce.

Why this matters for hotels

By adopting healthcare-inspired Golden Rules’, hotels can:

Reduce the spread of illness
Improve guest satisfaction
Protect staff from exposure
Strengthen brand reputation
Ensure audit-ready housekeeping operation

This approach moves hotels beyond basic laundry care and cleaning into a robust, preventative infection-control system, and supports the government initiative to reinforce the development of a resilient UK by reducing the risk factors, through training teams who are adhering to best practice.