NHS Cleaning Audits: How Mobile Auditing Can Help
It is no secret that, in healthcare settings, meticulous cleaning is essential for ensuring the safety, comfort, and care of patients, as well as controlling the spread of infection. In order for such environments to meet the required standards, all healthcare organisations must comply with the guidance and auditing processes outlined by the NHS.
Applicable to all healthcare settings, the National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness 2021 (NSHC-21) were published to replace the National Specifications for Cleanliness in the NHS 2007. This updated set of regulations was created to provide clear advice on the cleaning tasks that must be carried out in healthcare settings, reflecting modern methods of cleaning and infection prevention.
What are the new audit requirements outlined in the NSHC-21?
The NSHC-21 introduced three stages of audit: technical, efficacy, and external. Technical audits, also known as cleaning audits, involve a thorough 50-point check of cleanliness to ensure that it meets safe standards. Alongside this, efficacy audits are conducted by assessing the process of cleaning at the point of service delivery, for example by verifying the correct use of colour coding, equipment, and materials. Finally, external audits are conducted by a third party to provide quality assurance and validate the results of the audits conducted internally.
The NSHC-21 also introduced a new cleaning audit grading system to replace the old percentage scores. Instead, cleanliness star ratings would be used, with zero stars being “urgent improvement necessary” and five stars being “very good”. This is a much more simple and effective way to provide patients and visitors with meaningful information about quality and cleanliness.
Another new system implemented by the NSHC-21 was the use of functional risk categories to determine the necessary audit level and cleaning frequency within each functional area of healthcare facilities. There are six categories, with FR1 being the highest risk and FR6 being the lowest. Written justification must be created for the risk category applied, and the rating of each area must be reviewed every year or whenever there has been a major change in clinical activity in the area.
How can Mobiess’ mobile auditing app help you to comply with the NSHC-21?
Recently, Mobiess launched the NSHC-21 Cleanliness App, a mobile auditing solution designed to digitise, simplify, and streamline the management of cleaning and efficacy audits. The app ensures compliance with both the NSHC-21 and regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act (2008).
Promoting a high level of hygiene and efficacy in NHS settings, the NSHC-21 Cleanliness App can be used to conduct detailed audits by room and by element, record the cleanliness of patient assets and equipment, inspect environmental hygiene in hospitals, and log and manage corrective actions with photographic evidence. Importantly, the solution supports the six functional risk categories and functional area mapping outlined by the NSHC-21.
Using the NSHC-21 Cleanliness App, detailed reports can be generated on cleaning performance per ward, department, and site, all of which can be managed effortlessly online without the burden of paperwork. The platform supports the use of blended and unblended scores, enabling the generation of star hygiene ratings. Through this, you can verify that safe standards have been achieved and reassure the public of the building’s cleanliness.
Usefully, the NSHC-21 Cleanliness App also supports the allocation of responsibility for various cleaning tasks to the correct staff members, whether it be the nursing, cleaning, or estates team. Furthermore, corrective actions can be directly allocated to a workforce or cleaning contractor, or fully integrated into your CAFM system.
With the help of a digital solution, audits of all kinds can be drastically enhanced. By moving away from the use of outdated paper-based processes, you can benefit from streamlined inspection processes, save significant amounts of time, organise your data more effectively, and eliminate the need to deal with mountains of paperwork, all while reducing costs.
To find out more about how Mobiess can help you to comply with the necessary regulations related to the cleanliness of healthcare settings, call our team on 0203 411 1795 or email us at [email protected] for more details. Call us or use our website to schedule an online one to one demonstration of our system.
