How clean is Aberdeen Royal Infirmary?

This is a follow up to a post I wrote in November 2009 (called How to complain about the NHS), in October 2009 several wards at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary were inspected and found to be dirty, with poor procedures for infection control, hand washing, waste disposal etc (you can read the details in my earlier post, it doesn’t make for comfortable reading). There was an unannounced follow up inspection in November and that report has just been published today.  You can read a summary on the Scottish Government website – Improvements at Aberdeen Hospital or on BBC News – Hospital improves after criticism, the full report is available from the NHS Quality Improvement Scotland website -HEI Unannounced Inspection Report.

As far as the follow up report makes out, things have improved.  An infection control doctor and nurse have been appointed and it seems that people have a better idea of who is responsible for what.  The follow up report makes it clear that the earlier recommendations still need to be implemented, as well as the recent recommendations in the follow up report. Am I reassured by this report?  Well I’m glad to see things are getting better but I’m not convinced any of the underlying problems have been resolved. Hopefully time will tell and improvements will continue to be made, but if you are in ARI and you don’t like what you see, complain! Statistics seem to be more important than common sense.