ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Latest reports from Ireland's health watchdog show no improvement in hand hygiene standards in hospitals across the country. In fact the problem of non-compliance with correct hand washing procedures appears to be getting worse.

Analysis by the Irish Patients’ Association of the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) audits carried out this year shows the hand washing non-compliance level has risen to 47 per cent, from 45 per cent when the previous batch of reports was published last month.

HIQA looks at other aspects of hygiene apart from hand washing techniques, and the results for overall hygiene standards are not looking much better.

One of the hospitals in the latest set of reports for example, the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear in Dublin, is deemed “generally unclean”, and there is plenty of evidence of dust, dirt, grime and substandard conditions in the other four hospital reports published.

These failings are being put down to inherited conditions and overcrowded facilities.

Virtually all the hospitals audited have the protocols and training courses in place that should ensure standards are met but as HIQA notes in respect of so many hospitals, these measures are not operationally embedded culture of the organisations.