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NHS England and NHS Improvement guidance states that all healthcare settings including primary care are expected to ensure full compliance with the new National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness by November 2022. Premises expected to comply includes but is not limited to GP surgeries, primary care, dental care, acute hospitals, mental health, community, ambulance trusts, clinics and care homes.
There are five key requirements to ensure your full compliance with the new NHS standards of cleanliness, summarised as follows:
At Green Fox, we work with various medical premises of all sizes across Hampshire, Sussex and Surrey. We understand the importance of the highest levels of cleanliness at your medical practice, day after day. Lets look in a little more detail at the three audit types as outlined in the new NHS cleaning standards guidance.
What is the 50-point mandatory audit?
As the title suggests, this part of the new structure details 50 key areas that must be checked for cleanliness and compliance, with the last point including all cleaning equipment, including cleaning trolleys. You can find the 50 point check list and details for the next two audit parts detailed below, by simply clicking here.
What is the efficacy Audit?
In short, the efficacy audit has been designed to measure how you or your cleaning contractors clean, as opposed to what you clean and how frequently your cleaning takes place. Efficaciousness is determined using evidence-based, scientific methods. This will include:
What is the external audit?
In short, the external audit is contacting other local medial premises, to inspect each-other under the new NHS cleaning standards. This is not formally scored, but used for general observation, and looking to implement changes and improvements for any issues identified.
This third-party audit performs a vital role. There are no scores involved: it’s all about the systems you have in place. Are your functional risk areas divided sensibly? Have you got a system to identify low-performing areas and how effective is your remediation process?
We hope you have found this article on the NHS cleaning standards useful. To get in touch with your local Green Fox Cleaning office to find out how we can help ensure your full compliance with the new NHS cleaning standards, click here.
To find out more from the NHS website about the new NHS cleaning standards, click here.
On the 5th July 1948 an historic moment occurred in British history, a culmination of a bold and pioneering plan to make healthcare no longer exclusive to those who could afford it but to make it accessible to everyone. The NHS was born.
Before the creation of the NHS or anything like it, when someone found themselves needing a doctor or to use medical facilities, patients were generally expected to pay for those treatments.
Since then, the NHS has gone through many changes, improvements, updates and modernisation processes. No-one back in 1948 would have been able to foresee the way in which the NHS developed, succeeded, pioneered and expanded.
Today, the NHS is facing a greater crisis still. The issues of funding and demand continue to rise and the ability to provide free healthcare to all is a continuous topic of debate for many.
Things such as the implementation of new NHS cleaning standards help ensure continual improvement is sought.
