'Clean hospitals' code for patents(U.K. to reqiure patients to supply own soap and toiletries)

This Is London ^ | January 26, 2005

[Stoat]

'Clean hospitals' code for patents
26 January 2005

All NHS patients should provide their own soap and toiletries in hospital as part of a 10-point code to be launched later this year, it has emerged.

The Patients' Association has produced the code in efforts to create cleaner hospitals and reduce the risks from hospital-acquired infections.

The code, revealed by Nursing Standard magazine, says patients should arrange for relatives to wash their nightwear while they are in hospital.

It also says that hospital visitors should go home and wash and change their clothes before coming to see a relative.

The code is being launched this spring at the Clean Hospitals Summit, to be attended by NHS chief executive Sir Nigel Crisp, Chief Nursing Officer Christine Beasley and Health Minister Lord Warner.

The Patients' Association is to set the NHS a 100-day challenge to clean up its act and reduce healthcare associated infections, such as the deadly MRSA superbug.

The campaigning group, whose president is Claire Rayner, wants patients to play their part in keeping hospitals clean.

The code also says that hospital visitors should be limited to two at a time, while patients in isolation, such as those with MRSA, should receive no visitors at all.

Ms Rayner, a former nurse, told Nursing Standard: "Clean hospitals are an important factor in the fight against hospital acquired infections.

"Some wards are disgusting with urine bottles lying around and no-one bothering to take them away.

"Floors are not cleaned underneath beds and often walls are splashed with blood. Lavatories are often foul."

[oceanperch]

Septi Soft we have used it for many years in our home.

[Stoat]

Churches will also be needed to assist with this new system. People who don't have families will need private organizations, particularly churches, to help them out now.

Actually, that might not be such a bad thing.  Churches usually can be counted on to provide services far more efficiently than Government sources of the same services.  Before the "Great Society" programs here in the US, Churches were far more active....and very effective....in helping the poor.  But the Government has largely shut them out for the past several decades.

If Churches were to have a stronger presence in hospitals, I don't see a negative side to that.  It's just a shame that it may well be a requirement as a result of Socialist, bureaucratic mismanagement.

[Stoat]

My husband spent several weeks in he hospital,we brought him all his own soaps and shampoos and did his laundry everyday. Some of the things we saw made us stop and think just how do they stop infections from spreading when many of the nurses and orderly were not what I would call hygienic. Bedpans an urine bottles left all over the rooms were common and on the bottom of everyone todo list

I'm very sorry to hear this.  Would you mind my asking where this hospital was?

I hope that your husband has had a speedy recovery despite this.

[bd476]

Now that's a very good point, Stoat. To each his own doesn't get one's hands clean - considering the number of people who don't wash after using the restroom... akkk!.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Thanks for your prompt response. As you no doubt have guessed I am in a state of high dudgeon myself. No, the Flagstaff Medical Center is a privately owned, or should I say corporately owned, citadel which dominates the medical care of our growing town of about 50,000. A medical cabal within the community owns and operates "The Big House." My friend was told that he couldn't have hot water because he was on the third floor. His private physician demanded that he be brought down a floor so he could have a shower after my friend's wife and I announced that we were moving him to the VA hospital in Prescott before he began to supurate. I don't mean to sound hysteric about this but in the last 10 years I have seen two friends die of mysterious, undiagnosed infections in beds in the place after minor surgeries. I've stayed on the 20th floor of hotels and had no trouble with hot water. Basically, it is a grossly underpaid staff and a grossly greedy management team which has resulted in a situation where the accounting department calls the shots. Frankly, if I were sick, I would rather lie out in the city park and receive the ministrations of the winos. I know of at least a couple of competent physicians who have resigned their privileges over too many incidents like this at this hospital.

[bd476]

Nurses have the important job of sitting down manning the nurses station, answering phones, filling out paperwork, counting the medicines, checking the alarms, taking breaks and taking turns being charge nurse.

Hopefully you will have a very trusted, blood relative, medically savvy advocate to oversee that you are properly cared for. Most people have no idea what often happens.

[oceanperch]

I bring all my own supplies from home as it takes eight hours to get things and some things hosp. do not have for our care needs.

Actually with some awesome Drs. and other medical folks we have become self suffieciant at home.

We refer to having to go to a hosp. for anything but a lifesaving surgery or OR room time for scopes ect. a visit to "The Zimbagwee Clinic"

I think more should be done to have patients get great home health directions and it would cut down on community bugs that thrive in the hosp.

Can't imagine not cleaning out my suction canisters daily but it is often overlooked in the hospitals.

So many patients go home without a clue on follow up care or neglect to follow instructions.

I'm all for the home visiting Doctor as is becoming trendy again.

More home health!

[PJBlogger]

After Hillary finishes taking on the sad, tragic situation of abortion, she will turn her evil eye to health care.
Read this and be very scared. This is what awaits America if Hitlery succeeds.

[Stoat]

I'm very sorry to hear of the state of affairs there. It seems to be a severely mismanaged place, but as you have indicated there are better places nearby and you have the option of getting better care, something that our British Friends may not have available if they only have access to NHS services.

I'm sure that if you were to relate your story to healthcare workers at other hospitals they would tell you that the incidents you experienced are not representative of State or Federal standards and are not what any hospital in the United States would consider a "Cadillac Facility".

That's the difference....the standards related in this article are to be the NATIONAL STANDARDS for Great Britain's National Health Service.

[bd476]

From personal experience, one family member should be there at all times. In an ideal situation, one family member could stay, one can run errands, keep the patient's business matters and mail kept up, bring food for the family member who stays, bring changes of clothes, do laundry and then they can trade places or there could be a third person for "relief" visiting.

It's critical that there is always a medically savvy family member in attendance at a patient's bedside in a hospital. There is much daily negligence and some outright abuse in some of our nation's finest hospitals, and it's all blamed on financial woes.

[Stoat]

This is what awaits America if Hitlery succeeds

Agreed.

[oceanperch]

Totally agree.

After all the years of hosp. visits our biggest challenge is to stay far away from them.

I am not looking forward to my day visit but need the OR to remove any polyps for my five year check.

Soon as nap time is over I am outa there and home to sleep it off in my bed.

Luckily the specialist I chose comes to our town once a month on my respite day off. My son's careprovider while I am "napping with the big black hose"
is staying an extra three hours to make sure I am awake for next shift.

Also the nappy meds they give usually have no lingering effects and I am up and running once awake.

I will scrub my body down with septi soft prior as a protectant wear some old sweats and a tee my dollar store slippers then toss them in the garbedge when I get home.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

I've learned enough from Mack's experience to check into decent hospitals before being passively admitted. I've also learned from the experiences of Russian (formerly Soviet) athletes and am putting together my own "care kit" in the event that I ever need extended hospital care: sanitized bedclothes, sheets, pillow, personal care items etc.

Britain is just in ghastly shape. I feel for the poor people there. The legacy of socialism, sigh.

If you're ever in the Flagstaff Medical Center, post to FR and we'll come and carry you off. (We're old military medics and we can at least keep you clean and dry.)

[cherry]

"I'd also have pairs of disposible gloves. Don't want to touch most surfaces in a hostpital. Handles on faucets, doors etc.... Auto on/off for facilities would help."

that would be true of almost any building that housed a lot of people coming and going......various people of dubious cleanliness using the bathrooms, coughing, hacking, etc.....

whenever you exist in a closed in environment, you can expect an increased chance of "catching" the flavor of the day....

point is:.....during cold and flu seasons, stay away from large crowds in buildings, and do not go to the hospital unless absolutely necessary.....

and anyone who really thinks they are being "kind" by visiting sick people in the hospital, are foolish.....sick people need to have peace and quiet and chances to sleep thru out the day since there is so much commotion 24/7 as it is.....and don't come calling on sick people if you are already sick yourself, even a little cough......

[cherry]

there is not "daily negligence" ....if that were true our life spans would be diminishing,not growing....

if you have had bad expieriences, thats tough, but the overall picture of health in America is very good, despite our self induced ailments associated with smoking,drinking and drugging as well as over eating....

if you want more personal attention at a hospital, maybe try going to the legislature and demanding more money for it, instead of the legislature giving all their money to those poor, poor teachers...

academics, for the sake of arguement, have fared poorly for decades, despite the govt throwing money....billions....at schools and teachers, yet no one will ever pull back on that spending despite poor results, yet all the govt can think to do is NOT PAY the cost of care for patients that THEY require be treated.....poor, indigent, illegal, medicare, medicaid....

try running a business where it is mandated that you give away at half cost or no cost half of your products, and see how well you do finanacially....

[bd476]

Cherry with all due respect, I disagree about visiting patients, unless the patient him/herself demands no visitors. Even then, there should always be a supportive blood relative who visits.

Personally this is advice I have been given several times from doctors, from hospital staff nurses and from lawyers. Some patients who otherwise had a fair to good chance of recovering have suffered from neglect and in some rare cases they have suffered outright abuse. I have witnessed both.

[bd476]

Cherry wrote: "there is not 'daily negligence' ....if that were true our life spans would be diminishing,not growing...

if you have had bad expieriences, thats tough, but the overall picture of health in America is very good..."

My experience is not as a patient, but as a student, as an employee and as an attending relative with a medical education.

What basis do you derive your statements above?

[bd476]

Good that you are thinking out the details in advance of the procedure. It's smart to plan ahead for the day despite the errrh prep, and the procedure itself. I don't envy you, but I admire your courage and example.

Everyone, they are now saying, needs to get this done upon the first sign of symptoms. I heard that they've dropped the beginning advised age again.

Hopefully you're going to have an experienced internist not a surgeon do the honors?

[mewzilla]

I'm all for the antibacterial soap, but why can't the hospital provide it? How does bringing the same product yourself benefit you and not just the hospital?

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

It's critical that there is always a medically savvy family member in attendance at a patient's bedside in a hospital. There is much daily negligence and some outright abuse in some of our nation's finest hospitals, and it's all blamed on financial woes.

I believe this to be a widespread problem throughout the United States and it does relate to the financial pressures of cash-strapped hospitals.

There are way too many administrative "Clipboard Carriers" and not nearly enough nurses.