Ward Housekeeper Scheme (Hansard, 14 January 2002)

§ Mr. Burstow
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much money his Department allocated for(a) 2000, (b) 2001, (c) 2002 and (d) 2003, to monitor the effectiveness and value for money of the ward housekeeper scheme. [25360]

§ Mr. Hutton
No additional funds have been allocated to national health service trusts specifically to monitor aspects of the ward housekeeping scheme.
Trusts that receive one-off funding to introduce and develop housekeeping services must place review and evaluation processes in place as part of their project management of housekeeping services.
Patient satisfaction with housekeeping services will be captured by the National Health Service Estates national questionnaire.

§ Mr. Burstow
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how his Department will monitor the effectiveness and value for money of the ward housekeeper scheme. [25362]

§ Mr. Hutton
The housekeeping guide, "A first guide to new, Modern and dependable ward housekeeping services in the NHS", includes a framework for the establishment of housekeeping services within trusts. The framework states that the trust should set up a review process that will evaluate the housekeeping service and establish a continuing quality improvement process.
A trial questionnaire devised to capture patients satisfaction with ward housekeeping services is to be piloted in six trusts within the new few months. The results and conclusions will be shared with relevant trust patient forums and committees. It is planned to include the resulting agreed questions in the National Health Service Estates national questionnaire for future years.
The NHS Estates national questionnaire gathers information from patients about their experience within the NHS. These results in turn will help to support the findings of clinical governance and clinical care outcomes.

§ Mr. Burstow
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much money his Department has allocated to(a) implement and (b) run the ward housekeeper scheme in (i) 2000, and (ii) 2001; and what his projected expenditure is on the programme for the next three years. [25361]

§ Mr. Hutton
To support the introduction of ward housekeeping set out in the NHS Plan, national health service hospital trusts will each receive a one-off payment of £50,000 for project management costs to help them introduce and develop ward housekeeping. Trusts will decide at local level how best to fund housekeeping services in future years.
To date, over £10 million has been distributed to trusts:

(i) 72 trusts received payments in December 2000

(ii) 140 trusts received payments in October 2001.
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Remaining trusts will be allocated funding as they develop robust action plans for the introduction of ward housekeepers.