Hospital breached hygiene rules

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An east London hospital has been ordered to make urgent improvements after it breached hygiene rules.

The Healthcare Commission served Homerton University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with an improvement notice over infection control.

Inspectors found dirty bedpans and commodes in the hospital and criticised its decontamination of surgical equipment and its staff training.

The trust said it had appointed a team to address the issues raised.

"Significant" breaches of hygiene regulations were found in two unannounced inspections of Homerton University Hospital in November.

Low infection rates

Inspectors found bedpans and commodes that had been cleaned yet remained visibly dirty.

"In some cases they were marked as being ready for use," the commission said.

The trust failed to follow guidelines for decontaminating endoscopes - tubes with cameras at the end which are used to view the patient's stomach and bowels.

In one room inspectors found the trust had not followed steps to ensure clean equipment was separate from dirty equipment. Relatively low infection rates are not enough - systems need to be in place to keep infection to a minimum Marcia Fry, Healthcare Commission

However, inspectors acknowledged the trust's rates of MRSA and Clostridium difficile have "generally been low".

The trust reported seven cases of MRSA between April and September this year and 22 cases of C.difficile between April and June.

"Our annual rates are below the national average and represent a low risk of acquiring infection," a spokesman for the trust said.

But Marcia Fry, the commission's head of operational development, said it was "extremely important" for trusts to adhere to all hygiene rules.

"All trusts must drive rates of infection as low as they possibly can and to do this they must have all the necessary systems in place to deal with infection prevention and control," she said.

"Relatively low infection rates are not enough - systems need to be in place to keep infection to a minimum."

The trust has until 30 January to implement all of the commission's improvements.

The trust spokesman said: "We had already taken action to address issues raised in the notice, and have developed comprehensive plans to put things right.

"We have put a new team in place to take this top priority work forward and are aiming to have the notice lifted by the end of January."