xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx

 

Our ref: DE00000324723

 

14 July 2008

 

 

 

Dear Mr Booth,

 

Thank you for your email of 30 June to the Department of Health requesting, under the Freedom of Information Act information about cleaning services at hospitals that have reported cases of hospital acquired infection in the last 2 years for which figures are available. Your email has been passed to me for reply.

 

The Department of Health is responsible for the NHS in England and therefore the following answers relate to England only. Data on the NHS on the devolved authorities should be sought from them directly.

 

I will respond to your questions in the order in which you state them:

 

1. How many NHS hospitals are there in the UK as a whole?

 

There is no specific definition of a ‘hospital’ for the NHS, distinguishing them separately from similar facilities such as health centres. However, data is collected through the Estates Related Information Collection (ERIC) system on NHS sites using specifically defined hospital types for this collection. For 2006-07, the data collected showed that there were:

 

 

Hospital Type	Number
General Acute	270
Multi-service	139
Short-term non-acute	252
Long Stay	295
Specialist	174
Total	1,130

 

Further information on local hospitals is available from the NHS Choices website at www.nhs.uk.

 

2. How many NHS hospitals have reported cases of hospital acquired infection in the last 2 years for which figures are available?

 

The term ‘Healthcare Associated Infections’ is a broad phrase that covers a number of infections.  Not all of these are reported centrally.  However, trust- level information from the mandatory surveillance system, including MRSA and Clostridium difficile, is available on the Health Protection Agency (HPA) website at www.hpa.org.uk . 

 

3. What proportion of all NHS hospitals use private sector cleaning services, what proportion of all NHS hospitals use in-house (non-private sector) cleaning services? If any, what other forms of cleaning service are used in the NHS and what proportion of all NHS hospitals use them?

 

Information about your last two bullet points is provided to the Department of Health by NHS trusts, via the Estates Related Information Collection (ERIC) and is set out below.  Provision of the data is voluntary for NHS Foundation Trusts and mandatory for other NHS Trusts. Therefore, the data collection will not provide a complete data set for the NHS.

 

In response to point three, we have provided data for all NHS hospitals, whatever their clinical specialty or organisational arrangements.  For point four, we have provided figures for acute trusts only, as these are the organisations that are required to report their health care associated infection figures to the HPA. 

 

 

           

4. As previous question but replace 'all NHS hospitals' with 'NHS hospitals that have reported hospital acquired infections in the last 2 years for which figures are available'.

 

Please See 3. above.  Hospitals’ reporting of MRSA and Clostridium difficile is available for this period (at trust-level), from the HPA website (as mentioned in response to your second question above).

 

If you have any queries about this response, please contact me.  Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

 

I hope this reply is helpful.  If you are unhappy with the way the Department of Health has handled your request you may ask for an internal review.  You should write to the Section Head of the Freedom of Information group at the Department of Health, quoting the reference number above:

 

Freedom of Information Unit

Department of Health

Room 334b

Skipton House

80 London Road

SE1 6LH

 

Email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xx.xxx.xxx.xx

 

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the Department.  The ICO can be contacted at:

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

 

Yours sincerely,

 

William Scott

Customer Service Centre

Department of Health