Hygiene and Cleanliness
About cleanliness
Health is our business, so we take hygiene extremely seriously. To keep infections like MRSA, clostridium difficile and flu at bay takes dedication from NHS staff and patients. But it doesn't stop there. We expect our visitors to take hygiene seriously too - and it's simple.
We are committed to reducing Health Care Aquired Infections (HCAI) and have developed an Infection Control Policy published our statement of compliance with the Department of Health MRSA screening policy. We also complete monthly audits to ensure compliance against screening and policy.
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Hygiene campaigns
We are currently supporting these hygiene campaigns:
Wash your hands - The Clean Your Hands campaign shows how easy it is to stop infection spreading simply by washing your hands. This is why, at ward entrances, you will see alcohol hand gel. It's there for everybody to use on entering and leaving the ward.
The 'hand in hand' campaign is spearheaded by NHS East Midlands, the Strategic Health Authority, and is in response to recent polling amongst East Midlands' residents which reveals that cleanliness is still a top concern for 37% of the population.
Click on Healthy Hands to read about how important clean hands are or look at the Dept of Health alcohol rub poster to find out more information.
Inspections by the Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT) - An independent PEAT team regularly inspects our premises and highlights any environmental improvements that need to be made. Last year, we spent £100,000 fixing problems such as poor flooring, revealed by the PEAT inspection. To improve the environment of our Learning Disability homes, we are spending a further £750,000.
Up to scratch?
The standard of cleanliness that exists in our properties is governed by the Hygiene Code. Our cleaning schedules comply with the National Specification for Cleaning. As a way of monitoring and displaying the frequency with which different areas are cleaned, we adopted the National Colour Coding Scheme in August 2007. Information about the scheme is available on each of our wards and departments, along with cleaning schedules.