9:29am Wednesday 6th February 2008
By Thom Kennedy
BLOOD-smeared walls, soiled commodes and dirty beds have been found at the Princess Royal University Hospital (PRU).
Spot inspections were carried out at the Farnborough hospital by the Healthcare Commission on January 21 and January 22.
Last Wednesday, Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust, which also runs Orpington and Beckenham hospitals, was served with an improvement notice ordering immediate changes to its infection control practices.
Bloodstains were found on bed frames and walls, commodes marked clean and ready for use were soiled underneath, and dust was found in three wards - M4, M9 and the Medical Assessment Unit - on bed curtain rails, ventilation plates and trolleys used for carrying blood cultures.
Sterilising machines were used without enough evidence of the origin and history of instruments decontaminated in them being recorded.
Commission chief executive Anna Walker said: "Cleanliness was not good enough and equipment decontamination processes needed improving.
"This is not acceptable to patients, who want to know everything possible is being done to protect their safety and ensure a good standard of care."
Bromley is the second hospital to receive the notice since the Healthcare Commission, an independent national body, was given the power to give them out in 2006.
One Orpington woman, who asked to be referred to only as Anne, said her partner Mike, a regular gym-goer, is now using crutches and a leg brace after a spell at the PRU in December 2006.
He was in for an arthroscopy, to deal with a minor knee pain.
After a short stay, he was readmitted for three-and-a-half weeks after contracting septic arthritis, and is now in constant pain, sleeping just three hours a night.
She said: "He didn't have it when he went in and his leg was constantly covered afterwards so he didn't get it when he came out, but to prove it was a lack of cleanliness is difficult.
"He is 47, and was a builder, but there is no prospect of him going back to that now. During his stay, the floor was washed once, and there was a serious outbreak of gastroenteritis.
"In A&E he dropped something on the floor and I picked it up. Under the bed it was filthy.
"There was blood splashes on the walls, and on one occasion the man in the next bed was sat in his own vomit for three hours."
The trust has introduced a tracing system to record the use of sterilisation machines.
It must also develop an action plan to ensure the cleanliness of all patient areas, overseen by NHS London strategic health authority, by February 29.
Cleaning contracts at the hospital, which can be renegotiated, are organised by the Private Finance Initiative, which runs non-medical services.
It received a 33-year-long contract when the hospital opened in 2003.
Ian Wilson, the trust's chief executive, said: "We provide safe clinical care at the PRU and we take the prevention and control of infection very seriously.
"We are not complacent, we are keen to learn how we can improve further, and continuously strive to keep infection rates to an absolute minimum.
"The Healthcare Commission's Inspection report is a valuable expert view which will help us with that."
A spokesman said a deep clean of the hospital was under way.
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