A new system of auditing hygiene in the State's 52 hospitals, which will result in hospital theatres and kitchens being inspected for cleanliness for the first time during a hygiene audit, was announced yesterday.
The first inspections to be carried out under the new system will be undertaken in the spring when the hospitals will be vetted on the basis of new national standards which have just been drawn up by the Irish Health Service Accreditation Board (IHSAB).
The inspectors carrying out the audits will include infection- control staff and staff responsible for hygiene in the State's hospitals as well as some outside experts.
The results of the first audit under the new system, which will be based on unannounced inspections, will be published next summer and the audits will be repeated every year.
Dr Mary Hynes, assistant director of the Health Service Executive's national hospitals office, said the new audits would still be "independent" and "objective". She said the HSE was always going to be very open and transparent about the results of the audits and that, rather than sanctioning those that did poorly, it was "a very powerful incentive for hospitals to up their performance".
The first acute hospital hygiene audit was conducted by outside consultants in 2005 followed by a second one this year.
In the first audit only five hospitals surveyed met required standards, but in the second 32 hospitals did. The two hospitals which scored worst in the second audit - Monaghan General Hospital and the South Infirmary/Victoria Hospital in Cork - were re-inspected recently and the results will be available in four-five weeks, according to Dr Hynes.
She said the audits were very important for public confidence in hospitals: "If we go in and see a place that's grubby and that's dirty, it makes us question, rightly or wrongly, everything about what that hospital does. On the other hand, if we go in and our first impression is good, it does build confidence and trust in the services that we or our loved ones are going to receive in that place," she said.
Asked if the new audits would help bring down the numbers of patients who pick up MRSA in Irish hospitals, Dr Hynes said handwashing was probably the single most important thing one could do to help control infection in our hospitals.
"That and things like management of sharps [ needles], management of waste will contribute. Handwashing in particular will contribute but there is a whole range of other things that we need to do as well to help control infection in our hospitals like having more infection-control staff, like looking at the way we use antibiotics . . . we have plans to put more staff in place, to have a major education campaign both for staff and for the public."
She said the HSE recognised that some of the fabric of some hospitals was old and dated "so we do need to invest in upgrading our facilities and that's going to be an ongoing process; we're not going to manage to put everything right overnight. But there was €10 million for this year, there will be another €10 million for next year to help address some of that."
Róisín Boland, chief executive of the IHSAB, said it had allocated €600,000 towards the audits next year. There would, she said, be briefing sessions for hospitals on the new standards before the end of the year.