Clean Slate

Henry Norman sees an AHCP conference preparing itself for a fresh start.

The Association of Healthcare Cleaning Professionals' 35th Annual Conference took place in Bristol on the 9th and 10th of June.

The theme for this year’s event was ‘Hand in Hand: Caring for Our Patients, Our Colleagues, Ourselves’, the latter of which seemed particularly apt due to the political undertones which somewhat overshadowed proceedings. With the country’s new coalition government having only been formed a month previous and the emergency budget looming on the horizon, it was rare that a speaker managed to negotiate their presentation without at some point reflecting on the "cuts", "challenges" or "choices".

This isn’t to say that it was a glum affair – far from it. The organisation engendered an upbeat outlook, with actors posing as patients circling among the delegates; conference moderator Nigel Grinstead doing an excellent job of promoting interactivity during the debates; and the offer of free massages during breakout times courtesy of health specialists Fitta4Life. The atmosphere conveyed the spirit of a group of people who had recognised the situation and were charging their batteries before coming out fighting.

Arriving just after lunch on the first day, HefmA Pulse was just in time to catch the presentation from Stourbridge-based GP Dr Steve Mann, who prescribed a positive attitude as being the best medicine.

“There are inefficiencies, I’ve no doubt about that,” he said.

His primary piece of advice was to have confidence in the NHS and be proud of its reputation and standing. “We’re often so encapsulated in our own little world that we forget what a great brand we have and what opportunities are out there, whether it’s in primary care, nursing homes, or in the workplace,” he continued. “We need to be creative and be strong about our brand.”

Where some of the speakers veered from the AHCP’s hygiene-based focus, the next certainly didn’t. Dr Liz Jones, who impressed our own Adrian Eggleton (see page 58), will of course be familiar to many members after she also spoke at the recent HefmA conference. Her presentation centred on the work she and her colleagues at the Department of Health have been undertaking in order to develop a new specification for cleanliness in healthcare facilities. She began by explaining why they had undertaken the work. “The existing national specifications have served us well since we stole them from Australia back in 2000/2001,” she said, “but we did feel they were in need of refreshment for a number of reasons.

“We were fairly sure that they were not being applied in exactly the same way across England. We also knew that sometimes they were not being conducted quite as honestly as they could be; an awful lot of people were mysteriously achieving 100% compliance. Although that’s fantastic, I suspect that an external person may not have rated them quite so highly.”

Having set out her stall, she was bullish about the importance of the research. “Now we have a much stronger evidence base that cleaning has an effect and that effect can be measured, and that it is something that does good and that inadequate cleaning has a relationship with infection,” she said. “Within the PAS, what we’ve tried to do is specify three broad levels of flexibility to say that there are some things that are absolute; there are some things that are necessary but are for you to decide about; and there are some things that are entirely at your discretion. But all hospitals should be clean – it’s a no-brainer.”

She went on to speculate on the affect that the new government will have on the sector. “I have every assurance from the meetings that I’ve had with ministers so far that they take cleanliness very seriously, that they think clean hospitals are extremely important, and that they want hospitals to stay clean,” she revealed. “They’ve been very clear that  funding within the NHS is not going to be subjected to the same cuts that other public sector services are. They have  also been very clear that we all – NHS and Department of Health staff – have to become more productive and use  money better.”

After an apparently high spirited time was enjoyed by all at the evening’s awards ceremony, day two kicked off with  what appeared to be an impassioned sales pitch from Nick Hutton, senior buyer, and Nigel Watson, trading manager,
from NHS Supply Chain.

Speaking of the company’s role as the largest provider of products and services to the NHS, Hutton said: “We want to make sure that we deliver to you the right products certainly at the right prices. So far we have delivered £100m in savings for the NHS, which is a significant amount. Every year, in terms of savings, was bigger than the previous year, and we’ve delivered products at a 98.5% to 99% service level. But we’re here for you to let us know what more we need to do and we’re certainly receptive to any ideas.”

Conference moderator Nigel Grinstead was characteristically happy to take them up on the offer, beginning by asking how they would describe their relationship with the NHS when they first inherited the contract. “It was good in certain parts and not so good in others, and what we’ve been trying to do is build bridges with both the supplier base and the customer base,” admitted Watson.

“There was a lot of cynicism and a lot of suspicion at the outset of the contract,” continued Hutton. “The initial questions were: who are you and what are you? Private? Public? Department of Health? But gradually we’ve built since then and we can give out the reassurance that ultimately what we’re trying to do is save as much money as we can.”

Watson concluded the talk by appealing for further feedback from the sector.“It would be useful to understand from  the customer base whether they feel that the relationship has changed,” he said. “I think the difficulty is, what used to  happen was that we gave you what we thought you needed. Hopefully there’s a subtle difference now in that you guys  drive our workload and we only deliver what you want.”

The conference was rounded off with some more tough talking from Dr Stephanie Cartwright, who is head of market and commissioning development for NHS Dudley. She pulled no punches when reflecting on the £20bn of cuts that need to be made by 2014, saying: “This really is the hardest and most challenging time that the NHS has ever seen. The NHS, as we’ve all known it, will be changing dramatically. The NHS brand will remain, but the amount and different type of providers that will be providing those services will increase dramatically. “Organisationally, structures will change dramatically. Locally we’ve got to cut  management by 44% within the next two years, which is huge. This means there will be a much more challenging agenda, with less people to undertake the work but a greater choice of providers.”

She went on to warn delegates against being complacent with regards to their future job prospects. “This job for life  ethos that we’ve always had in the NHS will change,” she said. “There’s no guarantee that anybody’s job will stay as an  NHS provider any more because the amount and type of providers will change.”

Providing a somewhat sunnier finish to proceedings was celebrity GP and stand-up comedian Dr Phil Hammond, who was a perfect choice to pick up the crowd as we approached the end of a packed two-day programme. His laugh  out loud funny set – in which he revealed the shocking truth about thermometer hygiene, the prescience of graffiti on the walls of the Department of Health, and just what your GP is likely to be up to if you walk into his office unannounced – was a fitting way to end an upbeat event which, despite recent occurrences, defiantly insisted on  putting a smile back on the face of the sector.