Audit Committee, 04 Mar 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 4, 2003

Official Report 89KB pdf

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“Hospital cleaning”

We move to item 2. We have received a letter from the Scottish Executive on its response to the Auditor General for Scotland's report on "Hospital cleaning". Members might recall that the Auditor General briefed the committee on the report on 4 February. The committee agreed to write to the Executive seeking information on some of the points raised in the report.

We now have the Executive's response to that request for information. We have clarification of Executive action on the report. The health department has written to all national health service boards and trusts asking them to implement the recommendations in the report. All NHS trusts have agreed action plans to address the recommendations and implementation will be monitored. NHS boards will oversee performance, give guidance and ensure that there is progress.

The Executive has stated that hospital-acquired infection will be addressed in local health plans this year and that both infection control and hospital cleaning will be included on the agenda of the annual accountability review meetings, all of which will take place this summer with individual NHS systems.

NHS Quality Improvement Scotland will conduct—probably in 2004—a review of performance against a cleaning services standard, after which a general report will be published along with individual trust performance reports. The Executive has said that a task force on hospital-acquired infection has been established under the chief medical officer, who expects to report this summer on technical specifications for cleaning processes and frequencies in the NHS.

This response from Mr Trevor Jones is much clearer and allows the committee better to understand the processes and timetable for action on a major national health service problem.

You are right to say that the response is positive, convener. However, the introduction of new NHS structures and the future status of trusts add another element of uncertainty about the exact implementation of the programme. As a result, there is more of an onus on health boards and individual hospitals. That said, I am very pleased at the general tenor and detail of the response.

Yes. We have expressed our unhappiness about the vague nature of some of the Executive's previous responses, but it has now supplied details, timetables and other items against which we can check progress.

I appreciate the clarity of the instructions to the health trusts. Given the public concern about HAIs and cleaning standards in hospitals, it is important that the Auditor General has managed to get the NHS trusts to examine the matter correctly. I agree with Sarah Boyack that the issue is at least on the agenda and I hope that it will be built into the new NHS structures. In that respect, the response is very positive.

We must now, as ever, check against delivery.

I suggest that members note the response and agree that our comments in the Official Report be brought to the attention of our successor committee through the legacy report. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

I will now move the meeting into private session. We will pause to allow the press and public—[Interruption.] As ever, I have received good advice from the clerk. I first suspend the meeting for 10 minutes.

Meeting suspended until 14:16 and thereafter continued in private until 15:05.