Tony Sullivan, head of bio-decontamination at the NHS Deep Cleaning and Advisory Service, conducting a Royal Society for Public Health accredited training programme – NHS Deep Cleaning and Advisory Service
The Sue Ryder charity is one of the first healthcare providers in England to appoint the recently launched NHS Deep Cleaning and Advisory Service to meet the new official cleaning standard.
The NHS service has completed training for the hospice charity’s cleaning staff and follow-up audits of its premises to keep at bay coronavirus contamination.
The charity, which runs hospices and specialist neurological care centres across the UK, engaged the NHS Deep Cleaning and Advisory Service to guarantee that staff, patients and visitors felt reassured with the extra layer of cleaning protocols in light of the pandemic.
The NHS service trained the hospice and neurological care centre staff in ‘Cleaning the NHS Way’, the first programme for domestic cleaning to be accredited by the Royal Society for Public Health.
The training regime is delivered by NHS Deep Cleaning and Advisory Service founders, NTH Solutions, an NHS wholly owned FM company and a subsidiary of North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust. NTH Solutions worked in partnership with its infrastructure delivery partner Tutum Health to provide the service to Sue Ryder.
On top of training, each hospice and neurological care centre was audited by the NHS Deep Cleaning and Advisory Service and offered extra guidance and assurance on cleaning protocols, as well as certification for all attending cleaning staff.
Ian Peri, head of health, safety, estates and environment at Sue Ryder, who managed the service roll-out across its homes, said: “The service we have received from NHS Deep Cleaning and Advisory Service has been exceptional. Receiving accredited training and on-site support for our staff from the service has gone a long way in ensuring that sense of security for both our staff and our patients.”
Mike Worden, managing director of the NHS Deep Cleaning and Advisory Service, said that when its protocols were developed a year ago, the aim was to offer confidence to community colleagues so that they could feel safer in their environments, starting locally in education trusts and local businesses to help people deal with the pandemic.
He said: “Cleaning is such a fundamental step in protecting ourselves against diseases and we had a lot of knowledge at our disposal to help the people around us. We also wanted to take off pressure from our local hospital in Stockton as it managed a growing number of Covid patients. We then began to expand our service and provide support on a wider geographic scale, and a year later, we’re helping to protect communities and vulnerable people all over the country.
“Partnerships such as this one with Sue Ryder provide the public with all of the experience and expertise in the NHS standard of cleanliness, as well as the reassurance we were giving to the doctors and patients at the height of the first wave in our hospital that it was a Covid-safe environment. Improving our public cleaning is key not only for coming out of the pandemic but for reducing the risk of another pandemic in the future.”