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Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
15/03/2010
The overall standard of cleanliness at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh is generally good, although there is room for improvement, according to an inspector's report.
The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate's report, published today, commended NHS Lothian for its work in preventing infection, in particular its mandatory training programme and the high numbers of staff involved in the cleanliness champions programme.
The report, however, identified a number of areas for improvement:
- Ensure better management for clinical waste bins
- Tighten up consistency in recording cleaning activities
- Ensure ward staff have access to up-to-date information
- Review the placement of hand hygiene information for patients, staff and visitors
Today's report covers two inspections at the Edinburgh hospital - one pre-announced and one unannounced.
Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said:
"The Scottish Government is determined to achieve improved performance right across the NHS in Scotland on hospital infections, and to ensure that patients and the public can have complete confidence in the cleanliness of hospitals and the quality and safety of services.
"The report highlighted a number of positives at Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh but there are areas for improvement on which they must act now.
"NHS Lothian have published an improvement plan and the inspectorate will also carry out further unannounced inspections in future to ensure that we have real assurance on patient care."
The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate operates independently of the Scottish Government and the NHS boards it inspects. It carries out both planned and unannounced inspections of hospitals. For administrative purposes, it is based within NHS Quality Improvement Scotland.
Due to an administrative error, details of the wards to be inspected on the initial unannounced inspection on January 18-19, 2010 were released to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in advance. As a result of this a further unannounced inspection took place on February 2, 2010. The findings of both inspections are included in this report.