Scotland’s healthcare improvement organisation has voiced its serious concern with on-going cleanliness issues at Hairmyres hospital in South Lanarkshire.
The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) for Scotland has released its latest inspection report for Hairmyres and highlighted serious issues with patient equipment and environmental cleanliness.
The report relates to unannounced inspection visit to the hospital on Tuesday 16 and Wednesday 17 September 2014. The inspectors where unhappy with the patient equipment and environmental cleanliness and so requested that immediate action be taken.
A follow-up unannounced inspection on Friday 3 October 2014 revealed that the issues had not been addressed prompting the EHI to take their findings to the Scottish Government.
Speaking of the report, Susan Brimelow, HEI Chief Inspector, said “I am extremely disappointed by the findings from this inspection. During inspection on 16 and 17 September, we found patient equipment which was not clean, and a poor standard of environmental cleanliness in all wards and departments inspected.
“We escalated our concerns to senior management on 17 September 2014 and requested that immediate action to be taken to minimise the risk of infection. We also asked NHS Lanarkshire to produce an improvement action plan to show how these issues would be rectified.
“On Friday 3 October, we returned unannounced, to ensure improvements had been made and to assess progress with the improvement action plan.
“Although we saw some areas of improvement, issues with the cleanliness of patient equipment and the environment remained.
“Due to the serious nature of our findings, I escalated my concerns to Scottish Government. We will continue to inspect Hairmyres Hospital to ensure that improvements are made, as every patient coming into hospital should expect their local hospital to be safe and clean.”
This inspection issued seven requirements and three recommendations relating to the issues which NHS Lanarkshire are obligated to address as a matter of priority.
The full report is available on the Health Improvement Scotland website.
