Hospital deep-clean drive is 'a waste of resources'
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The Government's drive to deep-clean every hospital in England came under sustained attack on its deadline of 31 March.
Ministers said at least 93 per cent of NHS trusts would complete the process by last night, but opposition parties condemned the exercise as "gesture politics". Infection control experts, hospital managers and cleaning contractors dismissed the programme, claiming trusts would be back to square one within days unless the cleaning was sustained.
Professor Hugh Pennington of Aberdeen University said the £57.5m drive, announced by Gordon Brown last September, was "an expensive waste of resources". He added: "Politicians get hung up on cleaning but the major issue isn't environmental, it is the people bringing the bugs into hospital. That is what they should be attacking."
The Tories claimed only a fraction of the money earmarked for the exercise had actually been spent. The Liberal Democrats said no research had been commissioned into the effects of deep cleaning. Norman Lamb, their health spokesman, said: "This exercise has been an example of gesture politics."
The Health minister Ben Bradshaw said: "MRSA is down 13 per cent this year and C. difficile is down 16 per cent."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments