Steps are being taken as a matter of urgency to address the hygiene standards problems that were highlighted at St Luke’s Hospital by health inspectors last month, according to a statement from the HSE.
Standards of hygiene at St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny were found to have deteriorated when inspectors from the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa ) published their report this week stating that the standard of hygiene was only “fair” at the hospital.
A mattress examined in the emergency department was described as “visibly not clean following cleaning and this was brought to the attention of the manager”.
Four other areas that were examined by the inspectors were said in the report to have had “high and low level dust”, chipped paint, clutter and sticky tape residue on surfaces.”
Staff were found not to be using all opportunities to practise hand hygiene and their hand washing technique was not considered to comply with best practise.
St Luke’s Hospital received an A grade for its kitchens and linen supply but for ensuring its physical environment and facilities in general are clean it got a C grade (41-65 per cent compliance ) seeing the hospital’s ratings against four standards drop since 2008.
The HSE acknowledged that the same standards attained in previous such audits have not been reached on this occasion and general manager of the hospital, Anne Slattery, said the results of the report were disappointing but that they will be addressed as a matter of urgency.
“The HSE accepts fully the findings in the HIQA Report published today and take the issues raised by HIQA extremely seriously. The HSE has immediately put in place a plan at St. Luke’s General Hospital for Carlow/Kilkenny to address each of the issues raised by HIQA in its report.”
The measures include: Providing for an increased focus as regards cleaning etc in clinical areas of the hospital, in order to achieve higher standards of hygiene in the patients’ environment; and, an additional twice weekly internal hygiene audit of clinical areas have been introduced with immediate effect at St Luke’s. Outcomes will be reported to designated senior management, with proposed action plans to address any deficiencies.
Speaking about the publication of the Report, Ms Slattery added. “balancing the demands of service delivery in a very busy environment while ensuring the highest hygiene standards is a priority for the HSE and we are disappointed that the same standards of previous HIQA Reviews have not been reached at St. Luke’s General Hospital for Carlow/Kilkenny on this occasion. We will be working hard towards ensuring a much better result in the hospital in the next HIQA audit.”
