Hospital hygiene and cleanliness

Deep cleaning

The Trust has an ongoing, strong commitment to maintaining the highest standards of cleanliness and reducing healthcare associated infections. We completed our deep cleaning programme at the end of March 2008, and achieved a score of excellent for our recent annual cleanliness inspections. We have also recently invested in two hydrogen peroxide dry mist vaporisation robots to even more effectively decontaminate the patient environment and reduce the risk of infection in clinical areas.

Sterinis dry mist vaporisation robots

In February 2008 the Trust launched its Sterinis Super Cleaning robots. The robots use a technology called 'dry mist diffusion', which ensures a superior degree of disinfection, by completely and evenly spreading disinfectant by aerospray, over all present surfaces, that other traditional treatments may not be able to reach. The robots have proven to be very successful in the reduction of hospital acquired infections at other NHS trusts. As well as C.diff spores, the robots are effective against MRSA, Norovirus, Tuberculosis, E.coli, Listeria and many other pathogens.

The units are simple to use, and a wide range of cleaning staff and infection control staff at the trust has been trained in their use and operation. A sealed canister is placed within the robot, which is pre-programmed to cover a variety of sized areas with aerosprayed disinfectant.