Surgical site infections have been shown to be the source of up to 20% of all of healthcare-associated infections and at least 5% of patients undergoing a surgical procedure develop a surgical site infection (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence [NICE], 2008). On average, such an infection will add three to 10 days onto a patients hospital stay and incur an additional cost of between £4,000 and £10,000 for extra treatment (Department of Health [DH], 2008).