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Bolton Children's a&e

Story from nhs.uk

"Bolton Children's a&e"

About: Royal Bolton Hospital

Attended Bolton a&e last night following a referral from 111 service. The children's waiting room was filthy, there were sick bowls on the floor and dirty paper towels in a heap on the floor in the play section. Dirty empty cups scattered around, crisp packets on the floor and the floors were filthy. I cannot fault the staff on duty, however the wait was lengthy and as a result my little boy wanted to crawl around, to which we kept having to try and stop him as the floor was so dirty. My little boy was sick numerous times and where staff weren't availinle we tried to clean up the best we could. In the triage rooms and side room it appeared his sick was only wiped up with paper clothes and there was no use of antibacteria products.

We recently complained to Pals about the care my grandad received on B4 after being admitted into hospital with dehydration. He was put on a ward with neuro virus and contracted it twice. As he was 88, this made him bed ridden and immobile. As a result he was unable to return home and is in a care home for the rest of his life.

I can now understand why people say they don't want to go to hospital as they will never come out or they will become worse off.

In this day and age it is disgusting to see such low standards of cleanliness in areas that effect Vulnerable patients.

It is clear why Bolton hospital are constantly closing down wards due to the spread of inspection.

Something seriously needs to be done about infection control before it effects more people's lives.

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Responses

Response from Royal Bolton Hospital 8 years ago
Royal Bolton Hospital

Submitted on 30/12/2015 at 15:07
Published on nhs.uk on 31/12/2015 at 01:30

We would like to apologise for the poor state of children’s A&E that you have highlighted and would like to explain to you what we have done as a result of your comments..

The business manager of the department has investigated the matter and found that the waiting room did indeed fall below the expected standards.

The actions taken are as below:

Following your comments on NHS Choices the facilities manager arranged for a cleanliness audit which was carried out on the 29th December 2015 by the Trust monitoring officer of the children’s A&E department. This found that the floor in the waiting and play areas was not clean and there was some debris. Concerns regarding standards of cleanliness have been raised with the contract cleaning services manager who has arranged for the floors to be deep cleaned. The cleaning staff have been spoken to about the cleaning issues identified and their work will be closely monitored by the cleaning services management to ensure the high standards of cleanliness we expect are achieved and maintained. The Trust monitoring officer will also be undertaking additional audits of cleanliness. Random spot checks will also be undertaken by estates and facilities management of the children’s A&E department.

The infection control team has commented that staff receive regular training on the correct method for managing body fluid spillages and there are a number of antimicrobial products available in all clinical departments for this purpose. There are regular reviews of cleaning standards by a variety of groups; the cleaning contractor, the estates and facilities team and the infection prevention and control team. Where issues are identified, they are highlighted and rectified. We regularly review the ongoing needs of departments for support with cleanliness and will review these again in accident and emergency in light of these comments.

The business manager has arranged a meeting with the facilities manager to review the hours of cleaning into the A&E department on a daily basis and the times which these are undertaken to assess if further hours per day are needed due to the high volume of traffic in the evenings. The staff in the department have been reminded by the matron of the need to use the correct products for cleaning and also to escalate to the cleaning manager via a bleep out of hours if the waiting area needs a further clean.

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