MRSA Action UK chairman Derek Butler has questioned the Department of Health after it changed hospital clothing regulations to pacify religious objectors.

The decision, he said, was taken without any prior consultation with the charity and poses a danger to the "zero tolerance" policy for preventing MRSA and other transmittable infections.

A panel was convened by the Department of Health to re-examine its Uniforms and Workwear guidance after one Muslim nurse resigned due to the 'bare below the elbows' dress policy and the department became aware the policy "presented difficulties for a minority of Muslim female healthcare workers and students".

Butler is an advocate of 'bare below the elbows', which forbids medical professionals to wear any jewellery, watches or long sleeves, and was consulted prior to its implementation in 2007.

But the Department of Health, working with the Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the NHS, a resource for "recruiting, training and empowering Muslim chaplains in the health service",  carried out an "equality impact assessment" and changed the guidance to allow long sleeves if plastic gloves were worn on top.

This is a change which Butler believes is not easily implemented.

"We know that wearing gloves doesn’t work. People don’t change gloves, we’ve already seen this," he said.

Butler told Civil Society he doesn’t know why he was left out of the discussions and that despite having a meeting with the national director of the HCAI and Cleanliness Division at the Department of Health, Janice Stevens, a week before the changes were released, he was not informed. "I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t have known about it," Butler added.

Both Janice Stevens and the Department of Health have failed to respond to requests by Civil Society for information about the meeting and the impact assessment.