NHS yet to meet hygiene standard

Hand washing is required to cut infection levels on the wards

Hospital staff have yet to reach a target for complying with hand-washing standards, it has been revealed.

A report by Health Protection Scotland found staff hand-hygiene compliance levels fell far below the 90% required.

NHS Lanarkshire had the lowest rating at 75%, while staff at NHS Ayrshire and Arran had a 97% compliance rate along with those in NHS Forth Valley.

Over the last quarter, Scotland as a whole has managed compliance levels of 87%.

Among hospital workers, nurses cleaned their hands when required 89% of the time while other medical staff observed the rule 79% of the time.

Although this rate of progress is very encouraging, boards should not be complacent Nicola Sturgeon

For ancillary workers the figure was 81%.

The figures, however, show an improvement compared with previous hand-washing auditing exercises.

In the first exercise, in February last year, the compliance level across Scotland was just 68% - and in Lanarkshire it was as low as 55%.

Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said the latest figures showed health boards were making "huge strides" towards reaching the target.

Hygiene target

She added: "Although this rate of progress is very encouraging, boards should not be complacent.

"It is not just about reaching the target of at least 90% hand hygiene by November 2008, but also about sustaining and improving on this level of compliance year-on-year.

"Ultimately, NHS boards should be setting the highest standards possible - not just in hand-washing, but in the standard of hospital cleanliness - so the public can be confident we are doing all we can to keep our hospitals free from infection."

She said the hand hygiene target was one of a range of actions being taken to drive down rates of hospital-acquired infection.

The Liberal Democrats spokesman on health, Ross Finnie urged ministers to uncover why the handwashing target looks likely to be missed at the end of the year.

He said: "The health secretary is on the record as promising to do more to drive up hygiene standards in our hospitals.

"Ministers must uncover why the handwashing target looks likely to be missed and take swift action to make further improvements to hospital hygiene."

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