10 December 2004
NHS trusts need to spend more of their budget on cleaning services, ministers said this week after it emerged that fewer than half of hospitals in England have good standards of cleanliness.
The latest snapshot survey rated three mental health units as unacceptable: the Edale Unit and York House, both part of Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust; and Clifton & Abberley ward in Newtown Hospital, which is managed by Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.
A further 24 hospitals were deemed poor, while 583, almost half of the total of England's 1,184 hospitals, were judged to be just acceptable.
The report comes against a background of rising incidence of hospital-acquired infections, especially through the MRSA superbug.
Health minister Lord Warner said too many hospitals were 'happy to be average' and more needed to be done to bring all up to the standard of the best. He said steady increases in NHS investment gave trusts no excuse to neglect their cleaning services.
'We are moving out of a period when cleaning was underfunded. It follows that trusts will have to spend a bit more of their budget on improving cleaning,' he added.
The Department of Health is concerned that too many cleaning contracts have been awarded on the basis of cost rather than quality. Detailed guidance issued on December 7 provides trusts and contractors with recommended cleaning frequencies for everything from toilets to trolleys.
Warner urged trusts that are dissatisfied with their service to consider redrawing their contracts.
'What we're saying to trusts is, "Look at your contracts". If they don't give you the assurance, you need to look at re-opening negotiations,' he said.
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said the problem of dirty hospitals could be traced to the practice of contracting out cleaning services.
'Contracting out has led to cuts in staff, and falling standards. Cleaning contracts should be brought back in-house so that hospital staff have direct control and are able to take action to deal with any problems,' he said.
All three of the unacceptable hospital units had contracted out their cleaning services, as had 15 of the 24 poor performing hospitals.
But Warner maintained that there was no 'simple equation' to link poor performing hospitals to contracted-out services. He said that 11% of the 440 hospitals that had chosen to contract out their services had been awarded an excellent rating.
PFdec2004
