AN INSPECTION of Crosshouse Hospital has found patient trolleys contaminated with blood and body fluids – despite inspectors being told by hospital management they would be cleaned just the day before.

During an unannounced inspection by the Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) in October last year, inspectors found dirty or contaminated patient equipment including 10 out of 11 trolley beds in A&E contaminated with blood or body fluids, and four mattresses heavily contaminated or damaged.

In a room known as the ‘stitch room’ used for dealing with patient cuts and wounds that need stitching they found blood contamination to surfaces, a mattress, goggles and storage drawers.

In the hospital’s maternity unit, six out of seven bed frames and hand rails were contaminated.

Concerns were raised with senior management who said overnight staff would clean all patient trolley beds in the A&E department and deep clean the stitch room.

The team returned the next day to A&E to make sure the issues had been dealt with and were given schedules that showed all trolley beds had been cleaned by domestic and nursing staff overnight and re-inspected that morning.

However, on reinspection of five trolleys all were found to be contaminated with blood or body fluids including one that had the same contamination as the previous day.

This was escalated again with senior management who repeated assurances that all trolley beds in A&E would be cleaned and checked again.

When the inspectors returned a week later they found ‘the standard of cleaning of both the environment and patient equipment had significantly improved’ in A&E, with the majority of patient equipment inspected described as ‘clean and ready for use’.

The HEI told NHS Ayrshire and Arran it must ‘ensure that all patient equipment at University Hospital Crosshouse is clean and ready for use’.

Susan Brimelow, HEI’s Chief Inspector, said: “During our initial unannounced inspection we expressed concern to senior management regarding the standard of cleanliness of patient equipment in the accident and emergency department.

“As a result of our follow-up inspection, we saw a significant improvement, but will follow up on progress at future inspections.

“Staff across the hospital also need to be clear on the correct product and dilution ratios for the decontamination of blood on patient equipment.

“We found evidence that NHS Ayrshire and Arran is committed to improving the management of peripheral vascular catheters to help reduce the rate of Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemias, and the infection prevention and control team is carrying out quality assurance to validate self-audits completed at ward level.” A spokeswoman for NHS Ayrshire and Arran said: “The inspection team found that NHS Ayrshire and Arran was complying with the majority of standards to protect patients, staff and visitors from the risk of acquiring an infection.

“In response to the inspection we took immediate steps to address the areas which were identified as requiring improvement.

“We take prevention and control of infection extremely seriously and we have increased our focus on our own programme of unannounced inspections and audits to reinforce those provided by the Healthcare Environment Inspector.”