by Brianna Crandall — January 9, 2015—Of importance to facilities and custodial professionals who are directly or indirectly responsible for providing a clean, safe environment for patient care, BSI, the business standards company, has revised PAS 5748 Specification for the planning, application and measurement of cleanliness services in hospitals.
Sponsored by the U.K. Department of Health and produced with input from several healthcare organizations, the specification was first published in 2011 as a means of helping acute, community and mental health hospitals in England demonstrate that plans were in place to keep their premises clean and safe for patients, and thereby helping increase public confidence in the facilities.
Keeping the hospital environment clean is a key factor in delivering effective infection prevention and control arrangements as well as improving patient wellbeing, reminds BSI, and stringent cleanliness protocols provide the foundation for a continued reduction of health-care-associated infections (HAIs) such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
This specification provides a framework for a risk-based cleaning system and takes a continuous improvement approach to hygiene. It provides for the planning, application, measurement and review of cleanliness services in hospitals. The aim is to help key staff such as chief executives, directors of infection prevention and control, directors of nursing, and estates and facilities directors ensure that patient safety is a priority within the National Health Service (NHS) in England.
Some of the things that PAS 5748 covers:
- Governance of cleanliness service
- Assessment of the risk of a lack of cleanliness (for infection and damage to patient, public or staff confidence)
- Providing cleaning tasks
- Measuring cleanliness on the basis of visual inspection
- Implementing corrective action
- Conducting performance analysis and implementing improvement actions
PAS 5748 builds on the experience and content of The national specifications for cleanliness in the NHS (NSC), the most recent version of which was published by the National Patient Safety Agency in April 2007. It does not replace this but will exist alongside it to provide an alternative means of demonstrating an intent to comply with part of the registration requirements of the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
PAS 5748 is expected to be used in conjunction with The Revised Healthcare Cleaning Manual, which gives general and specific guidance on how to operate the provision of cleaning services within a healthcare environment.
PAS 5748 will be free to download for NHS staff in England.
