The new National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness 2021 were released quietly and without a fanfare back in April 2021.
So much so, I wasn’t even aware of them until a few weeks ago when I thought I should start updating the Infection Prevention and Control Policy and its sister document, the Cleaning Standards and Schedule Policy. Additionally, there’s been no traffic on the Practice Index forum about these new standards, so I assumed this was simply a benign update to the previous 2007 standards.
However, I couldn’t have been more wrong! If you haven’t yet seen these standards, I suggest you engage in some bedtime reading.
The standards
These national standards state on page 9 that they “apply to all healthcare settings”; it specifically mentions “primary care”. Good news, I thought, as I’m a real advocate for compliance, and cleanliness is absolutely what our service users would expect.
In the document, there’s an obvious lean towards secondary care from the outset; however, it all reads well and nothing is really that difficult or too traumatic to implement… that is, until about halfway through.
At the chapter that describes Governance, my heckles and blood pressure started to rise. It’s akin to a Quentin Tarantino film where, all of a sudden, it all goes horribly wrong and gets very messy!
Come the next chapter on Auditing, it’s full-blown gore and a true work of fiction. The processes required to implement the standards need a serious amount of time, effort and cost spent on them – all of which are in short supply. Whilst I believe this is doable for a large NHS Trust that has oodles of IPC and cleaning staff, for us in primary care, no chance, not on your nelly!
Sadly, the supporting documents section continues along the same secondary care lines – blah, blah, blah – and is mostly irrelevant. However, both the Compliance Grid and Efficacy Audit have some uses.
Inclusion
When you’ve read the document, I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s written for our NHS collegues in secondary care and this is absolutely apparent come the Acknowledgement section; of the 42 acknowledgments listed as having provided input to these new national standards, not one of them hails from primary care! Should I be shocked? Well, no, because we’re used to it; we clearly should be branded NHS Fungi as we’re so often kept in the dark.
However, we must become compliant as these standards have been adopted by the CQC, and GP Mythbuster 99 on infection control has recently been updated and says we must adhere to these standards and they’ll expect to see how we audit and give ourselves starred ratings.
So, when we’re being inspected, maybe we mushrooms should ask our regulator if NHS England would pass their ‘Responsive’ question as, at the moment, I don’t feel very included!
IGPM to the rescue!
Over the past week, I’ve spoken to several PMs and also the Institute of General Practice Management (IGPM). It seems that all of us were equally bemused as none of us were aware of this very important document. As such, I asked if the IGPM could assist.
Nicola Davies, a PM, a friend of Practice Index and a Director at IGPM, was instrumental in raising this with NHSE. She questioned how this had been imposed without any apparent thought for primary care.
In their defence, NHS England promptly advised that:
- A large GP practice took part in the pilot in 2018
- The GP provider network was involved in the development process
- The document went to consultation in 2019 and was sent to all organisations and professional associations including CCGs, and comments were received and noted
- A number of webinars to support the primary care sector were provided
Well, that passed me by – as it did everyone I’ve asked!
I assume that this also passed by the c.15k members who support the wonderful PI forum, as had there been any significant concerns, this forum would have been ablaze with comments such as “Please help!” … but there simply hasn’t been a whisper.
Good news
NHSE have engaged with the concerns raised and have agreed to discuss the next steps with IGPM. They also advised that they’re in discussion with a “number of CCGs and the network of GPs to revise documentation to be more user friendly for primary care, and new cleanliness charters have just been uploaded to support this sector”.
Asking Nicola Davies for a comment to support this blog, she said, “We’re frustrated that a document of this weight comes out in such a way as to feel that it’s under our radar, and again we don’t appear to have been involved in the working party.
NHSE has been very quick to engage with IGPM and we’re hoping that this will lead to further developments within the document that will make it a simpler, less onerous task.”
Next steps
Members of Practice Index can help by adding a comment to this post here. It would be very useful if you could let us know if you were advised of these changes or not, and if so, how? Was it NHSE, via one of their webinars, or were you given instructions from your CCG?
Any thoughts/comments will be used as evidence at the IGPM meeting.
Lastly, please note that whilst the IPC Policy is now live on PLUS with numerous updates, it now includes both PPE and IPC statement policies. We are currently working to update our Cleaning Standards and Schedule Policy to incorporate all of the changes and this will be available very soon.
As to how we audit these standards… well, stand by to stand by, as this will need to be a new chapter added at a later stage once those in the NHSE filmset work to make this more user friendly for those in primary care and provide us with some useful guidance, as opposed to how we can clean a bedpan!
Personally, I’d suggest reading and implementing the standards as soon as possible.
For governance purposes, audit and use the NHS Compliance Grid as a tool, and if you wish to implement the full audit process as detailed, go for it, but this may be changing for GP practices soon.
Keep smiling, clocks go back next month!
Mat
Update – the new policy is now available here [PLUS]
September 3, 2021 at 6:52 am
Hi Matt. I was aware of an old document from a few years ago . Clearly not aware of any updates or changes, especially if pertinent to primary care. Just another thing we should have been made aware of , and been party to. Again it feels that primary care is out of the loop again !
March 31, 2022 at 1:44 pm
i would love some assistance and a copy of the Templates . Many Thanks
April 1, 2022 at 10:39 am
Hi Janet
Pauline’s template is here: https://practiceindex.co.uk/gp/forum/threads/cleaning-template.17042/
The policy is here:
https://practiceindex.co.uk/gp/forum/resources/cleaning-standards-and-schedule-policy.1388/
September 3, 2021 at 10:58 am
Somerset CCG has a clinical lead working for Primary Care in this area. Her name is Julia Bloomfield and also Michelle Bell.
They are currently working on templates for Primary Care. I have templates if anyone would like a copy
September 3, 2021 at 12:08 pm
Yes please
September 3, 2021 at 1:34 pm
Yes please to the templates.
September 3, 2021 at 1:51 pm
Yes please to the templates. Many thanks
September 3, 2021 at 3:06 pm
Also yes please to templates. Thank you
September 3, 2021 at 3:48 pm
yes please, and thank you
September 4, 2021 at 7:18 am
Yes please to the templates
September 4, 2021 at 10:04 am
Yes please [email protected]
September 6, 2021 at 6:28 am
Yes please
I was not aware of this
September 7, 2021 at 4:46 pm
Dear Pauline
Rather than reinventing the wheel it would be great if you could share the templates please. Thank you
September 8, 2021 at 10:00 am
Yes Please. Thanks
September 8, 2021 at 3:08 pm
yes please to templetes
September 9, 2021 at 4:16 pm
Yes please 🙂
September 10, 2021 at 9:00 am
Yes please to templates – that would be very helpful, thank you
September 11, 2021 at 7:01 am
Yes please send templates thank you
September 14, 2021 at 10:28 am
Yes please, i would really appreciate a copy of the templates
September 21, 2021 at 3:48 pm
Hi Pauline Greer,
Yes please, I would be extremely grateful if you are happy to share. Thanks
January 20, 2022 at 8:20 pm
Yes please to templates
January 20, 2022 at 11:34 pm
Pauline has made the template available here: https://practiceindex.co.uk/gp/forum/threads/cleaning-template.17042/
Many thanks Pauline.
March 21, 2022 at 8:41 am
Yes please to the templates
May 6, 2022 at 7:49 am
Would be really interested to see these documents.
Many Thanks
May 6, 2022 at 10:14 am
Hi Sarah
The policy is here:
https://practiceindex.co.uk/gp/forum/resources/cleaning-standards-and-schedule-policy.1388/
Pauline’s template is here: https://practiceindex.co.uk/gp/forum/threads/cleaning-template.17042/
September 3, 2021 at 1:10 pm
Yes please to templates.
This is news to me!
September 5, 2021 at 2:28 am
Not aware of any changes.
Yes to templates, would make things easier for us all.
September 6, 2021 at 9:49 am
Thank you Mat for this update and the work that you are doing with Practice Index
September 6, 2021 at 10:52 am
Yes please to template, complete new to me as well!
[email protected]
September 6, 2021 at 3:40 pm
Pauline has now made the template available here: https://practiceindex.co.uk/gp/forum/threads/cleaning-template.17042/
Many thanks Pauline.
September 7, 2021 at 10:11 am
Yes please.
September 7, 2021 at 1:42 pm
This would be great, many thanks, look forward to receiving the templates
September 14, 2021 at 4:53 pm
This is the first I’ve seen on this, thank you for keeping us informed as always. Yes, templates would be very helpful.
January 19, 2022 at 2:18 pm
Is this something people are implementing in Practice independently or are you having to get outside companies to help at rather a large cost???
February 4, 2022 at 9:58 am
Our LMC has told us that it is guidance and not mandatory.