Cleanliness Concerns At Hospital

Concerns have been raised over the standard of cleanliness of patient equipment at a major hospital following a visit by inspectors.

The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) visited Glasgow Royal Infirmary to carry out an unannounced inspection in October.

Inspectors visited eight wards, including accident and emergency and general surgery, at the 970-bed hospital, meeting patients and staff and assessing cleanliness to see if it met national standards.

While they reported that the ward environment was clean, they found patient equipment which was contaminated with blood and other fluids, and there was a mixed understanding'' among staff in some wards over infection control procedures.

They have issued eight requirements and one recommendation as a result. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde says it took immediate action following the visit, and serious breaches of standards will not be tolerated.

The inspection report states: Across the wards and departments inspected, we found that the standard of domestic cleaning was generally good and wards were well maintained.

We inspected a variety of patient equipment across the wards and found the standard of cleanliness was mixed. On wards 15, 64 and 65, we found that there was blood and dust contamination on equipment.

During our initial inspection of the accident and emergency department, we found a range of patient equipment which was contaminated with blood and other fluids. All equipment had been designated as clean and ready for use.''

HEI was set up to help reduce healthcare-associated infection risks through its inspection regime.

Its requirements for Glasgow Royal Infirmary include ensuring all patient equipment is clean and ready for use, full implementation of a waste disposal policy, and ensuring that all staff are implementing standard infection control precautions.

Alastair McGown, HEI senior inspector, said During this inspection, we were particularly concerned about the standard of patient equipment cleanliness in the accident and emergency department, where we found equipment which was not clean.

We took action on our first day of inspection and escalated our concerns to senior management. We requested that an action plan be produced detailing how immediate improvements would be made to control the risk of infection.

We returned to the department the following day to check on progress and although some improvements had been made, issues with the cleanliness of patient equipment remained.

On Wednesday October 15, we carried out a further unannounced inspection to the accident and emergency department, following our earlier concerns. During this visit, we found further attention to detail was still required across the areas inspected. This inspection resulted in eight requirements and one recommendation. We will follow-up these concerns at future inspections.''

A spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: We were very concerned at the findings from the HEI report into the recent unannounced visit at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

As soon as we received verbal feedback from the inspector following the visit, our director of nursing wrote to all 38,000 staff to highlight her deep concern at the shortcomings identified at the visit.

We are already progressing with a full and detailed action plan to address the requirements and one recommendation identified by this inspection. In addition, we have increased our local inspections of our healthcare environment across key areas.

We cannot, and will not, tolerate serious breaches of standards by healthcare professionals and all other staff within any part of our healthcare system.

We have been very clear and reinforced to all staff the importance of maintaining the high standards expected of them with regards to the healthcare environment for our patients.''

Connor Gillies has been to NHS greater Glasgow and Clyde's headquarters to question Roselyn Crocket who's the director of nursing ....