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Healthcare environment and patient safety

A clean and safe environment is essential for infection prevention and control. It is a key priority for the NHS and is a core standard in the Department of Health document ‘Standards for better health’.

This key priority, coupled with concern about healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs), means that hospitals need to be clean and able to demonstrate their standards of cleanliness. Standards and colour coding need to be consistent and measurable. A clean environment also includes good hand hygiene.

The National Reporting and Learning Service has developed resources to help healthcare organisations achieve and monitor environmental and cleanliness standards. These include:

cleanyourhands, a campaign to help healthcare organisations reduce HCAIs via better hand hygiene
Creating and implementing consistent national standards, for example, colour coding, and specifications for cleanliness in the NHS
Requiring hospitals to measure and report on their environmental standards each year, using Patient Environment Action Team matrices.

Resources relating to environment and cleanliness are listed below.

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Keywords

Title	Issue date	Type
Patient safety issues related to gastrostomy \| Signal	28 February 2012	Signal
Use of plastic bags for self harm \| Signal	25 March 2011	Signal
Risk of harm to patients who are nil by mouth \| Signal	14 February 2011	Signal
The risk of harm from children and neonates entangled in lines \| Signals	14 February 2011	Signal
PEAT Assessments 2011	07 December 2010	Data report
Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT) results 2010: additional data	14 October 2010	Data report
National specifications for cleanliness: care homes	03 August 2010	Guidance
National specifications for cleanliness : primary medical and dental premises	03 August 2010	Guidance
High Hazards- summary and full report	01 March 2010	Guidance
Pembury: summary report	01 March 2010	Guidance
Design for patient safety: user testing in the development of medical devices	01 March 2010	Guidance
Preventing suicide: a toolkit for mental health services	25 November 2009	Toolkit
Revised Healthcare Cleaning Manual	05 June 2009	Guidance
National specifications for cleanliness in the NHS: ambulance trusts	11 February 2009	Guidance
Water: the forgotten nutrient	30 October 2008	Guidance
National specifications for cleanliness in the NHS	01 April 2007	Guidance
Bedrails Safer Practice Notice	26 February 2007	Alert
Colour coding hospital cleaning materials and equipment	10 January 2007	Alert
Future ambulances	01 January 2007	Guidance
Slips, trips and falls	01 January 2007	Data report

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Healthcare environment and patient safety

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