Hospitals to face unannounced hygiene checks
A blitz of spot-checks will take place on the State's 52 acute hospitals to ensure cleanliness and hygiene are placed first in the facilities, it was claimed today.
As concerns mount over the number of patients contracting the MRSA bug in hospitals, the new scheme of yearly mandatory unannounced hygiene assessments was launched to ensure national standards are followed.
Dr Mary Hynes, assistant director of the National Hospitals Office, said the new Hygiene Services Assessment Scheme would be expanded to examine areas including kitchens and theatre.
"I think all of us can judge hygiene and cleanliness, if we go in and see a place that is grubby and that is dirty it makes us question, rightly or wrongly everything about what that hospital does," she said.
"We have to recognise that a lot of our hospitals are quite old and so on, and maybe aren't designed very well for easily keeping them clean.
"So we have made some adjustments, things like hand-washing, minor repairs have spread throughout the system. We have also given people the tools in terms of supplying a cleaning manual so it makes it very clear what exactly we expect from them in terms of cleanliness and hygiene and there has been quite a lot of training and support around that as well."
Roisín Boland, chief executive of the Irish Health Services Accreditation Board (IHSAB), said hospitals will undergo a period of self-assessment which will then be followed by the unannounced external check.
Ms Boland said the external assessments by an independent team would take place next spring and early summer before a report on hygiene levels in Irish hospitals is published in August next year.
After a second hygiene audit published earlier this year showed some improvement in hospital conditions, Dr Hynes said there were plans to put more infection control staff in place in hospitals and hold a major education campaign both for workers and the public.
She said: "Hand-washing in particular will contribute, but there are a whole range of other things that we need to do as well to help control infection in our hospitals, like having more infection control staff, like looking at the way we use antibiotics. The level of prescribing of antibiotics for example."
The IHSAB have developed standards and 15 core criteria which hospitals must follow in order to achieve a compliance grade from the scheme.
It will examine the resources committed to development of hygiene practices, the relationships with contractors and the training of new staff in their hygiene responsibilities.
Other criteria examined include hand hygiene, linen and curtains, hazardous materials and the condition of the kitchens. Workers will be provided with checklists to ensure services are delivered in line with hygiene standards.
"There isn't a great relationship between the amount of resources people spend on hygiene and cleanliness and the results," admitted Dr Hynes. "It is really about using those resources well and in a targeted way.
"We have recognised that some of the fabric of our hospitals is old and dated so we do need to invest in upgrading our facilities and that is going to be an ongoing process we are not going to manage to put everything right overnight but there was €10m this year, there will be another €10m next year to help address some of that."
