Promised Hospital Deep Clean Misses Target

March 31, 2008 Posted by Administrator in : News , trackback

The NHS target to deep clean all the hospitals in England by the end of March is likely to be missed.

Ministers expect 93% of trusts to have completed the process by today (Monday) and the rest have apparently started their cleans and will finish soon.

However, the Tories said it was a shambles as not all the money promised to cover the costs of cleaning has been used correctly. 

A total of £60m has been spent on cleaning but the Tories say just £15.6m has gone to hospitals to pay for it.

To add to the criticisms, infection control experts have said that the programme is a gimmick and that it will only have a short-term impact on hospital infections such as MRSA.

Dr Jodi Lindsay, an expert in Infectious diseases: ‘The reason that it’s not going to work is that MRSA is carried by people and as soon as you deep clean a hospital, if you let people back into it again, you’re going to have the same MRSA problem.’

Cleaning firms have said the government should instead have properly funded day-to-day cleaning.

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