CSSA hits back at call to bring NHS cleaning back in house
April 30th 2008 The CSSA this week slammed the Royal College of Nursing’s call to bring cleaning back in house as “playing to the gallery”.
Following the announcement of the RCN’s conference vote, CSSA Director General Andrew Large defended contract cleaning firms working in the NHS, and called for a unified approach to operations regardless of whether they are contracted or in house.
"Today’s vote by the Royal College of Nursing to campaign for an end to contracted out cleaning flies in the face of the reality of hospital cleaning today. Without contract cleaning, UK hospitals would be in a lot worse state than they currently are."
Some 60 to 65% of UK hospitals are in-house cleaned. Despite this the UK has one of the worst healthcare associated infection rates in Europe. In the recent 'deep clean' programme – contract cleaners were brought in to support in house teams that could not cope with the work. Most importantly, without fundamental improvements in hand hygiene, bed management and antibiotic prescribing practice no amount of cleaning, whoever does it, is going to make a difference to infection rates.
The real issues are common to all NHS cleaning operations, be they outsourced or in-house. They are the under-resourcing of cleaning, low prioritisation of cleaning by NHS Trusts and a lack of screening and segregation of patients with infections. Unless these issues and the others mentioned above are resolved then the situation will not improve.
“In February, an NHS Cleaning Summit brought together all of the key players in hospital cleaning, to look for shared solutions to the current issues. This is a collaborative exercise that recognises that it is better to work together for the good of patients rather than engage in futile arguments about state ownership.”
“It would be much more constructive if the RCN were to put its weight behind these efforts rather than playing to the gallery.”
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