No complicated formulas: more cleaners = cleaner hospitals

Dec 8 2004

UNISON, the UK’s largest health union, has welcomed new figures showing improvements to standards of hospital cleanliness, but said that for most patients - “seeing is believing”.

UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis, said:

“There is no magic solution, no complicated formula, if you want cleaner hospitals, if you want to fight off the superbugs, you must have more cleaners. At the heart of the rise in infection rates is the fact that over the past 15 years, the number of hospital cleaners has been cut by more than half.

"MRSA costs the country 5,000 deaths a year and costs the NHS more than £1bn a year as people who have developed cross infections have to stay in hospital much longer. Employing the number of cleaners needed to keep our hospitals clean is just a fraction of that cost. Let's have a bit of commonsense here and get the basics right.

“Getting rid of MRSA and getting cleaner hospitals must be a team effort. Contracting out has led to cuts in staff, and falling standards. Cleaning contracts should be brought back in house so that hospital staff have direct control and are able to take action to deal with any problems.”