NHS QIS welcomes the report published today by Audit Scotland on the levels of cleanliness in Scottish hospitals.
NHS Quality Improvement Scotland has welcomed the report published today by Audit Scotland on the levels of cleanliness in Scottish hospitals.
Part of the report is based on an assessment of the performance of hospitals against cleaning standards drawn up by the Clinical Standards Board for Scotland (CSBS) which has now become part of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland.
This is the first time that NHS Quality Improvement Scotland has worked with Audit Scotland in carrying out a joint review of health service performance against agreed standards and there is potential for further collaboration in the future.
The review found that many elements of the cleaning standards are in place in a number of Trusts and a considerable amount of work is taking place to achieve further compliance. NHS Quality Improvement Scotland will now be responsible for further follow up work to assess how well hospitals are doing in making further improvements.
Last week NHS Quality Improvement Scotland published a report on healthcare associated infection (HAI) in Scotland which concluded that infection control systems need to improve to reduce the risks to patients.
The chairman of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland Lord Naren Patel said: “Our report on infection control last week and Audit Scotland’s report today sends out a clear message to the health service that cleaning and infection control processes have to improve. This problem has been known about for a long time but not enough has been done about it. That has to change. We will ensure that the performance of the health service on these and other issues continues to be subjected to the closest scrutiny.”