§ Dr. TongeTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Government's initiative to improve hospital cleanliness following the distribution of funds directly to hospital trusts for this purpose. [137740]
§ Mr. DenhamOver £30 million was allocated directly to National Health Service trusts at the end of July to start an immediate national clean-up campaign.
Rapid assessments of all acute hospitals were carried out following initial visits in July. More detailed assessments have been made following further visits to the 400 hospitals by the patient environment action teams (PEAT). Some 300 experienced managers and professionals, drawn from the NHS, private sector and supported by patient organisations were involved in these visits.
Every trust has prepared an action plan, which has been agreed by the Department. NHS Estates will validate and support the action plans. Each trust has a board member who will take personal responsibility for hospital cleanliness.
There will be five clean hospital summits in November for senior trust managers to share experiences and good practice.
Unannounced visits to hospitals will also be made in January, by the PEAT teams, to check that standards of cleanliness in our hospitals have improved, and that procedures are in place to ensure that these improved standards will be maintained. Once these visits have been completed we will be in a position to better assess how effective the initial stage of the programme has been.
To ensure that cleanliness in hospitals is maintained in the future we are drawing up a standard for cleanliness for all hospitals; these will be incorporated into the National Performance Assessment Framework and will be introduced next year.