§ 37. Hugh BayleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what action he has taken to improve standards of cleanliness in NHS facilities. [67301]
§ Mr. LammyThe NHS Plan, which was published in July 2000, set out a work programme for the national health service to improve the standards in cleanliness within hospitals and initiated an immediate nationwide campaign to clean and smarten up the NHS. Patient environment action teams (PEAT) undertook unannounced visits to assess progress. Over £60 million has been invested to make improvements to the hospital environment since the NHS Plan was launched, which will directly benefit patients and visitors.
The clean hospitals programme has been a clear success and has had a significant impact on standards of cleanliness, decoration and supporting services, to the extent that by October last year there were no hospitals in England where cleaning standards were found to be less than acceptable. Standards are now much more in line with patients' expectations. National results of the PEAT programme, as set out in the table, were published on 31 October 2001.
Red (poor) Yellow (acceptable) Green (good) Autumn 2001 0 387 300 New national standards for cleanliness in the NHS, which form part of the performance assessment framework, were issued to the NHS last year. They describe what a "clean" hospital looks like and will help all hospitals further raise the levels of cleanliness and, importantly, they will help to ensure that the standards achieved are maintained in the future. This means that for the first time there is a definitive set of cleaning standards with which all trusts will have to comply.