My friends at Thompsons have been involved in the Public Inquiry investigating the deaths of the people who were affected by C-Difficile in the Vale of Leven Hospital.  Following that outbreak several measures were put into place by the government to try and prevent any future outbreaks.

I was therefore very shocked to see that Ninewells Hospital has been criticised after inspectors criticised their current hygiene and infection control procedures.  The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) report on Ninewells Hospital in Dundee found poor compliance with hand hygiene rules, soiled equipment marked as clean, overfilled dirty linen bags.  Their report also highlighted concerns about a patient with MRSA who was being treated on a ward with other patients.  The Inspectors said that they were not assured that all senior charge nurses were confident in local infection control standards of practice and policy.

Inspectors also reported that they saw some staff not wearing aprons and gloves when changing bed linen; poor cases of hand hygiene, with medical staff wearing long sleeved tops and lack of alcohol hand gel in some wards.  They also saw overfilled dirty linen bags in several wards.

Mrs Thom is due to go into hospital shortly and I was horrified reading about this.  I hope that her experience in hospital will go smoothly.  I hope I don’t see what some of the inspectors saw or there will be trouble!!