Cleanliness in UK hospitals

[scattycarrot, BSN, RN]

Just read this artcile online and was wondering what you all think of it?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article2253546.ece

I personally think the author has obvioulsy been out of the workplace for way too long and while she has a valid point re: the lack of cleanliness in UK hospitals, she is totally unaware of the pressures on the nurse working on the wards today. I, for one, am sick and tired of nurses being held accountable for all the wrong doings and lack of cleanliness in UK hospitals these days. Last year, when I was working in an A&E in England, we nurses barely had time to ensure that the essential care was given let alone follow the cleaners round to make sure they were doing their jobs to a high standard. At nights, we had no cleaners so clearing up floor messes and changing toilot rolls fell to us (not that we weren't busy trying to look after that guy having an MI in room 6....'be there in a minute...just changing some loo roll") and at the weekends we went from 2 cleaners to one who only worked half a day and we all know what an A&E department looks like at the weekend. We nurses complained constantly about the lack of cleaners and cleanliness but to no avail. The management wouldn't listen to us and were thinking of making more cuts in the cleaning department and in fact they stopped clearing trash from the non-clinical areas in order to save money and the staff in those areas had to take thier own trash out. I would like to hear less nurse bashing going on (especially by fellow nurses) and more blame being laid at the door of those who are REALLY responsible for the problem. I know that we nurses are more frustrated than anyone by these problems but are hands are tied. The managements do not listen to nurses.

[nightmare, RN]

"Hospitals will never be clean again, because contracted staff simply want to earn their wages . . . when I started out, each ward had its own cleaning staff. They would kneel on the floor to clean bed wheels and climb on chairs to reach curtain rails. They were fiercely proud of their ward, and would tour it with Sister, while she checked that it was spotless."

That is the only sensible bit of this patronising twaddle! The rot did set in when hospitals contracted out the cleaning,usually to the lowest tender, and lost the in-house cleaners who had a sense of pride in their work. Many a sore ankle I had from the ward cleaner whacking you because your feet were dirty on a rainy day!A lot of these in-house cleaners also had some degree of learning disability and ,unlike a lot of people today,were proud and keen to do the job to the best of their ability. Bring back hospital employed cleaners again !

I have friends who have taken cleaning products into hospital with them so that they can clean their own lockers etc!

[english_nurse]

recently my gran was an inpatient on the ward next door to where i work

when she was admitted there on the monday i noticed blood on the side of her locker and over the nozzle of the hand gel, when she died on the thursday, i was sitting quietly with her and noticed it was still there, how disgusting!!

also the drip stand she had had tape all stuck to it with signs of blood on, the foot of the stand was filthy, covered in dust and something sticky-god knows what that was...

a shame because they looked after her well, i suppose the trouble is when you are short of staff things like cleaning just go by the wayside.

I had a run in with the ward cleaner the other day, ia lady collapsed in the side room and opened her bowels onto the floor, i cleaned most of it up but there were poo coloured streaks which needed to be mopped, i asked the cleaner and he said it wasnt his job!! whose bloody job is it then? i asked! i then asked him if i could use his mop to clean it up and he refused!!!!!! sometimes i feel like im banging my head on a brick wall at work...

[english_nurse]

and another thing

flaming visitors leave loads of rubbish around patients beds and expect us to clean it up, drinks cartons newspapers etc etc, its a hospital not the local social club!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:angryfire:angryfire

and put your chairs away instead of leaving them all around the bed, theres not enough room as it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[english_nurse]

thats better:) i feel much calmer now i can feel my anger slipping away......

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

COMPLETE second-hand comment from an American.

My eldest niece lives in London where she had two babies. She has private insurance as well as NHS but hates that she can't get it to cover childbirth, and no private insurer in Britain does, because they know that every ex-pat American wants a private doctor for childbirth.

She couldn't believe the dirty WC on her ward, and she detested being in a ward. The ward was overcrowded and understaffed. (There's a surprise.)

BTW, she has a lot of good to say about the NHS as well, but an enjoyable delivery was not among her favorable experiences.

[ayla2004, ASN, RN]

i do know that you can upgrade to a private room on a nhs maternity ward as my sis-in law had her two boys that way, but it depends on how many private rooms and if perhaps any are needed for isolation.

there are some private hospital with maternity care just that they are few and far between

[cheshirecat]

Poor little Libby Purves, sitting on her behind all day, trying to be a journalist. My heart goes out to her.

Maybe one of us should contact her, and ask her to walk a week in our shoes. No, on second thoughts, I wouldn't wish her on my most obnoxious patient.

It must be nurse bashing week again.:uhoh21:

[ayla2004, ASN, RN]

was talking with some health visitors about ward cleaners and the general opinion the rot set in when they were contracted out. people pushing dirty mops around floors half hearted instead of being proud of there ward.

what seems to get to patients is these same workers wash and repalce the water jugs each day, after cleaning the wards and toliets

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

what seems to get to patients is these same workers wash and repalce the water jugs each day, after cleaning the wards and toliets

Oh, man, that's a triple ewwwww!

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

Such a bad thing that cleaning went from in house to outside contracts, saying that when I worked in Wakefield they went back to inhouse due to the amount of complaints they were getting regarding lack of cleaning and complaints was coming from both public as well as staff. MIL was telling me the other day whilst she was visiting FIL she noticed 2 cleaning supers going round together 1 with clip board making ticks and the other using her finger to dust. Now sure that could be done with 1 person.

[nightmare, RN]

Such a bad thing that cleaning went from in house to outside contracts, saying that when I worked in Wakefield they went back to inhouse due to the amount of complaints they were getting regarding lack of cleaning and complaints was coming from both public as well as staff. MIL was telling me the other day whilst she was visiting FIL she noticed 2 cleaning supers going round together 1 with clip board making ticks and the other using her finger to dust. Now sure that could be done with 1 person.

But that's the trouble with NHS there's always more chiefs than indians!