Hospital hygiene

Reuters report today that the Lancet has condemned Brown's proposals to deep-clean hospitals and make all hospital staff wear short sleeves.  Their central contention is that he has neglected more important measures like making NHS staff wash their hands.

Some of the Lancet's criticisms are ill-founded.  The problem isn't that Brown is being too populist - the public are not fans of staff failing to wash their hands - or that keeping hospitals clean should not be a priority - they acknowledge that cleaning hospitals makes a significant difference to the spread of C. Difficile.  The problem is that once again the headline-grabbing simplicities of a politically managed health service will tend to distort activity towards big initiatives and away from small tasks like washing hands that can be more important.

Politicians need to stop trying to manage healthcare.

Comments

[Purple Scorpion]

The main problem is that the government shouldn't be trying to micro-manage all the county's hospitals. Some will have good infection control and maybe could spend the money better. Others will have very poor records and may have such bad practices that any benefit of a deep clean will be quickly lost.

Blair thought he could say something and it would happen. McStalin seems to think this central diktat will work for him - perhaps because he says things in a more serious tone? And he seems to think the more detailed his directives, the better.

But it's not so. The Nationalised Health Service is too big to be run even by an exceptional manager - which Mcavity clearly is not.

[Bob]

There has been far too much political interference in the NHS. The government should butt out of it and let the doctors and nurses run the health service.
Thirty years ago you could smell the disinfectant before you could even see the hospital and the staff wore clean, neat uniforms.

[Acorn]

Mathew et al; have a look at this EU health care report.

http://www.healthpowerhouse.com/media/Rapport_EHCI_2007.pdf

Evidence that the state should not be both the purchaser and the provider of any public service