Deep and meaningful
April 1st 2008

Not everyone thinks the government’s NHS deep clean announcement is a bugbeating silver bullet. But Yeovil District Hospital has used the extra cash to deep clean, buy new equipment and and train more cleaning staff.Brendan Coyne reports

The government’s vaunted NHS deep cleaning programme has

received a mixed reception: while an intensive blast will certainly help, some within the healthcare and cleaning sectors feel it may become a white elephant if regular cleaning regimes are not reviewed, optimised and standardised.In other words,prevention is better than cure. On the flip side,many trusts are delighted with the extra funding.

Yeovil District Hospital has not only undertaken an intensive clean of all wards but harnessed the additional budget to take on new staff – using the exercise to bring their knowledge up to the level of its existing house cleaning team.This is in addition to new steam cleaning, floorcare equipment and extra microfibre cloths afforded by the cash injection.

“We started the deep cleaning programme on 11 February and finished on 31 March,” says YDH Housekeping & Domestic Manager, Tracey Davies.“We covered every single ward, not just the clinical areas, starting at one end of the hospital and working toward the other, cleaning offices as well.The team bleach and steam cleaned all walls, bleach cleaned all the equipment, steam and bleach cleaned beds – and everything was cleaned twice.”All curtains were also cleaned, and the hospital will replace them with brand new ones by the end of April.

Davies heads up over 100 in house cleaners, and the funding has bolstered her roster.“We now have the budget for a specialist teaming clean – not all full time but it means we retain the knowledge that helps Yeovil achieve excellent results.We’ve always had very good audit results and very low infection rates.As a hospital it’s great that we have an in house cleaning team: a fantastic group of people that keep this hospital very clean.”

While Davies says the programme unearthed no “nasty surprises”, she says the team will now remove radiator covers more frequently.

Sidestepping the political question of whether she should have more budget for equipment and training,Davies is “exceptionally proud” of all her staff.“They do a fantastic job with the money we have, and it shows in our infection rates.We’ve supplemented the team, increased their knowledge – and the feedback from both staff and patients is entirely positive.”