Mixed results for the cleaning industry

So Great Britain has been bringing home the golds and the whole nation is rejoicing that at last the world sees we are good at something other than self-depreciation and making tea. For those of you who watched the opening ceremony, it was interesting to see director Danny Boyle's focus on the NHS.

Didn't those nurses, children and beds look clean? Yet according to online reports and a piece in The Guardian (30 July), nurses at Mid Yorkshire Hospital Trust are having to clean and mop wards as cuts have left them without cleaners for two days per week. Unsurprisingly the hospital missed a hospital acquired infection target, and only just achieved its C Difficile standard.

But back to the Olympics. The other main story, covered by The Daily Mail (15 July), is the apparently sordid temporary conditions that the Olympic park cleaners are in; damp portakabins, 25 to a toilet and 75 to a shower. It's the same old cleaning industry story - a case of an unseen, underappreciated workforce. Not a great incentive to anyone thinking of entering the industry.

On a lighter note, I live very close to the park, and an American stopped me the other day, telling me he was a photo-journalist and was doing an Olympics-related graffiti story. Did I know of any? I had to tell him that there used to be some down the road, but that it wasn't Olympics related and it had been cleaned up. “That's the trouble,” he sighed heavily, “as soon as it's up, it's gone.” So somebody's doing a good job out there, like they say, no news is good news.

Gerardine Coyne, Cleaning Matters Acting Editor

* Georgina Bisby is on maternity leave.