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Clean hospitals
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Last modified date:21 January 2008
Patients expect hospitals to be clean, tidy and welcoming. The Clean Hospitals programme is continuing to improve standards of cleanliness across the NHS, giving control over cleanliness issues to front line staff and highlighting that cleanliness is everyone's responsibility.
Background
The NHS Plan set out a plan to improve standards of cleanliness in hospitals. It introduced new investment to support immediate improvements to cleanliness and the quality of the whole patient environment and to ensure that higher standards were maintained in future years.
Aims
The Clean Hospitals programme aims to:
- ensure the patient environment is safe, clean, warm and welcoming;
- develop new national standards for cleanliness to apply in all hospitals;
- give patients the opportunity to provide feedback on the hospital environment so that hospitals can respond sensitively to these needs;
- give ward sisters and charge nurses greater control over the cleanliness and overall appearance of their wards;
- provide hospitals with support and best practice advice through Patient Environment Action Teams (PEAT).
The Clean Hospitals programme provided NHS trusts with support and a framework through which to make immediate improvements to the whole patient environment. Financial support of over £68 million has been provided to enable trusts to make improvements.
Patient Environment Action Teams (PEAT)
Patient Environment Action Teams were established in 2000, to make independent assessments in NHS hospitals. Under the programme, every inpatient healthcare facility in England with more than ten beds is assessed annually and given a rating of excellent, good, acceptable, poor or unacceptable.
PEATs consist of NHS staff, including nurses, matrons, doctors, catering and domestic service managers, executive and non-executive directors, dieticians and estates directors. They also include patients, patient representatives and members of the public.
Each year the programme has adapted to reflect the changing expectations of patients, the way the NHS is organised and to ensure that the results of the programme provide an accurate picture of the standards of food and food services across the NHS based on what patients say is important.
PEAT assessments look at range of food/service aspects as well as assessing a hospital's progress with meeting specific up to six objectives to improve the availability of and access to food.
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