Funds for NHS cleaning
Regional funding for the “deep cleaning” of NHS hospitals has been announced by Health Secretary Alan
Johnson.
All trusts will have to submit detailed cleaning plans, together with
costs, to their primary care trusts and strategic health authorities,
who will monitor performance.
Mr Johnson said: “The SHAs have now allocated funding so that hospitals
can get on with the deep clean programme with the aim of completing all
deep cleans by the end of March 2008.”
Spending intentions of each strategic health authority range from £3m
in the North East to £9.9m in the West Midlands.
The NHS has been given guidance on what constitutes a deep clean, which
might include dismantling beds, hydrogen peroxide fogging and restoration
of surfaces.
Deep cleaning is one aspect of a wide range of strategies to reduce healthcare
associated infection. It has been highlighted that careful
antimicrobial usage is also important (The Pharmaceutical Journal 2007;279:521).
New
figures published by the National Patient Safety Agency show that a steady
improvement is being made in the standard of NHS hospital food
and
cleaning.
Patient
Environment Action Team (PEAT) data for 2007 show that 99.5 per cent of NHS trusts scored “acceptable” or above
for hospital food, and 98 per cent scored “acceptable” or
above for the patient
environment (which includes cleanliness). The NPSA says that the 2008
PEAT assessment will include a section for infection control. |
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Hospital
Pharmacist