Annex A
TOWARDS CLEANER HOSPITALS AND LOWER RATES
OF INFECTION: A SUMMARY OF ACTION—ANNOUNCED BY THE SECRETARY
OF STATE FOR HEALTH
The proposals, as announced by the Secretary
of State in his press notice, [15]fall
into six areas:
Being open to the public about this issue; Measures
to involve patients in monitoring the situation in their local
hospital; measures to give staff at ward level the tools and encouragement
to put cleanliness and infection control a top priority; moves
to ensure consistent national standards of reporting; measures
to ensure that lessons are learned from the best at home and abroad;
and moves to ensure science makes the maximum contribution to
tackling this problem.
In particular:
(i) Ensuring every hospital publishes and
displays its infection rates and trends, as patients have the
right to know. Patients will have a choice of hospitals by the
end of next year, and this could become a factor in their decision;
(ii) NHS patients should demand the highest
standards of hygiene, and since human contact is a major way infection
spreads in hospital, to feel happy to ask staff if they've washed
their hands;
(iii) Patients' forums to conduct cleanliness
inspections four times a year, using a checklist drawn up by infection
control nurses and the results will be made public;
(iv) As bedside phones are introduced, they
should have a pre-programmed housekeeping button so patients and
visitors can be put through to the hospitals cleaning service
straight away;
(v) Matrons and nurses at ward level should
have the power to ensure high standards are maintained; putting
matrons in charge of cleaners, and having alcohol rubs at all
staff patient contact points;
(vi) Putting cleanliness at the heart of
the NHS inspection regime and introducing a new target to cut
MRSA, ensuring that the whole NHS gives the issue the same high
priority as the public does;
(vii) Because MRSA rates vary from hospital
to hospital, the whole NHS should learn from the best at home
and abroad. Experts are to be flown in from other countries with
low MRSA, and an MRSA summit will be held in the autumn;
(viii) New research into testing cleanliness
levels and a science summit of leading experts to advise us on
the best avenues for research into hospital infection.
15 Department of Health 2004/0259. New Action for
Cleaner Safer Hospitals. Press notice-Secretary of State for
Health, issued 12 July 2004. The document "Toward cleaner
hospitals and lower rates of infection" is published
at www.dh.gov.uk/publicationsandstatistics Back
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