Naming hospitals promotes hygiene, writes Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent.
Naming and shaming works. The results of the latest audit of hygiene in our acute hospitals proves this.
Hospitals branded the dirtiest in the State after the results of the first national hygiene audit were published late last year, were so embarrassed by their poor ratings that they pulled out all the stops to ensure they weren't at the bottom of the pile this time round.
Those hospitals included Dublin's Beaumont Hospital; St Columcille's Hospital, Loughlinstown, Co Dublin; and Waterford Regional Hospital.
And the results of the latest hygiene audit published yesterday show Waterford hospital increasing its score by 24 percentage points, St Columcille's improved its score by 22 points, and Beaumont by 21.
While the ratings of many hospitals improved in the latest audit, few hospitals other than those three saw their scores jump so dramatically.
So the message is clear.
While many object to league tables they can have their benefits.
In this case they forced hospitals, which were by all accounts in an appalling state, to clean up their act.
And they didn't just force those at the bottom of the league table to improve, they forced almost every hospital in the country to do better. Only two hospitals now fare poorly in terms of hygiene, compared with 26 when the first audit was carried out.
This is of course good news for patients, who have every right to expect to be cared for in a clean environment when they are sick.
However, these hygiene audits are just a snapshot in time based on observations during visits to specific areas in each hospital on a given date.
When the next audit is published in 2007 it will vet all areas of hospitals, including operating theatres, day wards and the general kitchen areas. This should give a more comprehensive and possibly more accurate picture of the overall hygiene level in our hospitals.
There has been much comment on whether there is a link between clean hospitals and good hand-hygiene practices among staff and the spread of hospital-acquired infections such as the antibiotic resistant superbug MRSA, cases of which are increasing.
Minister for Health Mary Harney said yesterday she believed better hygiene would help in the fight against hospital-acquired infection.
But Dr Mary Hynes, of the HSE's national hospitals office, stressed hygiene was just one element of infection control. She said she didn't believe infection rates would drop as a result of the hygiene audits.
"We need a whole range of other measures to tackle that, for example, much more emphasis on infection control in our hospitals, but it is a separate process," she said.
"We need separate measures to deal with infection control and we're doing that," Dr Hynes added.
National standards for infection control and for the cleaning of hospitals were being drawn up, she confirmed.