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  • Vermin- Your Viewpoint

    Rat, fleas, bedbugs, flies and cockroaches - damning figures released by the Conservatives show that 70 per cent of NHS Trusts bought in pest controllers at least 50 times each between January 2006 and March 2008.


    Vermin were found in wards, clinics and even operating theatres, with rats reported in one maternity unit, and a children's A & E department also being infested with flies. Wasps were also found in a neo-natal unit and operating theatres.


    The Conservatives have named and shamed 89 NHS Trusts that had more than 50 visits from pest controllers. Nottingham University Hospitals topped the table with more than 1,000 incidents reported.


    Yet, some critics have argued that the chances of pests transmiting infections in hospitals were very slim, and some of the listed trusts have argued that the figures are misleading especially since hospitals are contracted to regular visits.

    Do you think the figures are misleading?

    Can you give any examples of when and why pest controllers have been called to your hospital?

    Why do you think there is a difference between the numbers of incidents reported by different trusts?

    How can these pest 'incidents' be reduced?

    Should the figures and the use of pest controllers be viewed in a positive light as proactive management?






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    USA | 29 April 2013
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    USA | 4 November 2012
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    BOwodl Very good article post.Much thanks again. Cool. | 20 October 2012
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    d6xZDZ Thanks so much for the article.Really thank you! Really Great. | 20 September 2012
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    bUPG5P I am so grateful for your blog post. Great. | 19 September 2012
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    USA | 9 November 2011
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    Anonymous | 10 June 2011
  • It's definitely proactive management and good that the issue is taken so seriously. It's impossible to completely eradicate pest problems, so the next best thing is to keep on top of them
    Anonymous | 17 July 2009
  • So true, the other dday i threw my lunch waste in a bin and my colleague was like , i shouldnt that they saw 2 mice in the room last week.
    Anonymous | 9 July 2009
  • Hospitals in thirld world countries are better. please...... get your facts right. why dont people give praise where it is due. NHS is indeed the best health care service in the world. Where else do you get free health care, not even USA manages that , no health insurance and see how the heaalth professionals run away. Thirld world indeed, go there no ambulances, even the so called private hospitals dont have enough beds, you pay for your food, medicines not available. Please be grateful for what you have
    Anonymous | 8 July 2009
  • well they are trying their best.
    Anonymous | 7 July 2009
  • p.s there are no misleading figures at all, and the parallel for over half your bent nhs system being parasites is great! rock on!
    poppy | 26 June 2009
  • you always will be the ones making the headlines as well!
    poppy | 26 June 2009
  • It's a fact of life - unfortunately!  Obviously it's not just NHS buildings that suffer from pests, but we're the ones who make the headlines
    Anonymous | 18 June 2009
  • the size and age of the nhs means they are going to have numerous buildings that will require calls outs. It is just inevitable - can people not realise that because of the sheer size and numbers the nhs cannot be condemned for everything it does
    Anonymous | 10 June 2009
  • i can believe that when one time my friend threw a party for her friends who were doctors and nurses party straight after their shift and they came in with fleas allover their uniforms!  very unhygenic!
    Anonymous | 24 February 2009
  • we have reular visits from our pest controller to stop potential problems before they start. the only time i remember rats was when i worked at the university teaching hospital in Lusaka Zambia. if trusts used pest control as a regular thing then they may not have problems.
    liz bloomfield | 16 December 2008
  • I work at the Royal South Hants Hospital which is part of Southampton General hospital which is one of the top ten highest call outs for pest control. I am an Audiologist who has worked in the trust at the same dept for 14 years we have had problems with Fleas in carpets in the booth testing areas. The carpets are revoltingly filthy so I'm not surprised. Simple solution new flooring ! So please help us to get it removed and replaced. Call outs 3 times
    Anonymous | 5 September 2008
  • It would be very unusual, bearing in mind the sizes of the buildings where the NHS Trusts operate, for there not to be pests. It is a well known fact that we are no further than 70m away from a rat at any given time. Insects and small mammals have lost there natural habitats, due to humans over building, and obviously move into warm, dry and food rich environments. This report would only be a shock if pest control had not been called out. It is a shame that the opposition is keen to highlight the pests problem and would it be more helpful to highlight underfunding in all areas of care.
    Barney | 27 August 2008
  • vermin have always been evident in any large building area from ants to rats alike. Surely to comment how many times the pest controllers have been called is more a measure of attempts to deal with the pests than to suggest that hospitals are dirty, poorly run and infested by lack of action to control the situation
    phyllis | 20 August 2008
  • My name is Dr Rita Pal. In 1998 I was a junior doctor at North Staffordshire NHS Trust and I worked on Ward 87. At the time I whistleblew on the substandard care of patients on that ward. It is 10 years since that day. I was the youngest and the most junior whistleblower in the NHS at the time. In 2005, the NHS Trust finally disclosed the 2001 Creamer Report verifying my concerns. This website details the 10 year journey to hold the NHS accountable post Shipman. Ward 87 had a high number of deaths. Infact, to this day no one knows how many people actually lost their lives. It is the forgotten grave. A grave that the NHS Executive has hidden in its past. Whistleblowing has cost me my career as a doctor but that is nothing compared to the relatives who never knew of how their loved ones died. I therefore dedicate this website to all those who lost their lives on Ward 87. I hope the people in Stoke on Trent will one day question the authorities for themselves. The ward was finally closed in 2005.
    Dr Rita Pal | 19 August 2008
  • The NHS was once a great British institution, offering world class healthcare free of charge at its point of need. Sadly, after years of neglect and governmental mismanagement, the NHS has entered a possibly fatal decline. Speak to any member of the public, and they will tell you horror stories of how a friend or relative has suffered poor treatment and neglect in an NHS hospital. Even academia is not blind to the problem - a recent study from Brunel University found that doctors played a part in two out of three NHS patient deaths. Yet the powers that be insist that the NHS is going from strength to strength. Of course, the NHS isn't all bad. Many good doctors and nurses struggle daily through an ever growing mountain of bureaucracy and indifference to care for their patients. The purpose of this website is not to belittle their efforts, but to present a true picture of the NHS, good and bad, in the hope that something can be done to save this venerable institution before it is too late.
    NHS Exposed | 19 August 2008
  • The government are the real vermin! We note with concern the number of people on this forum are blaming 'immigrants' for the vermin problem. This is a reflection of a misinformed society. As health workers we wish to state our growing concern about the government’s policies against refugees and asylum seekers in this country. The human rights of asylum seekers are being stripped away, to the point that they have almost no rights at all.. The consequences for their physical and psychological well-being, are profound. We have been lied to about refugees and asylum seekers to the point where their pain and suffering, their dignity and humanity have been completely submerged beneath a tide of misinformation and fear. Asylum seekers are labelled by the press as bogus, benefit cheats, NHS tourists, and scroungers taking council housing and social services from local people. This, combined with increasingly harsh government policy, is having a direct, negative impact on the health on an already weak and vulnerable group of people. The people we see in our surgeries and hospitals are victims, of war, terror and repression. Instead of being welcomed and assisted they are demonised and attacked by the media and government. Depression, anxiety and agoraphobia are common, caused or aggravated by living in perpetual fear of arrest, detention, dispersal or deportation. Illnesses like hypertension, heart disease, ulcers and diabetes are also made worse. This comes on top of high levels of pre-existing stress and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To blame refugees for problems in the NHS is frankly absurd and demonstrates the depths to which the press and government will sink. The Wanless report found that under-investment in the NHS over the last 25 years, compared to the EU average, amounted to ?237 billion. This is why waiting lists are so long and why so many GP surgeries are full and unable to cope. The myth that refugees get preferential treatment on the NHS is precisely that, a myth. Several studies demonstrate that asylum seekers get fragmented care and have difficulty in accessing services. This is one of a number of areas where doctors and other health staff are being insidiously included in the war on asylum seekers. Enough is enough. When the state sanctions suffering and ill-health in this manner we have a duty to speak out.
    Roy Singer, Medical Practitioners Union (MPU) | 19 August 2008
  • Cockroaches and rats are a fact of life. They're everywhere that humans are. Including hospitals. Remember that the vast majority of these so-called 'infestations' related the number of visits made by the pest controllers. That doesn't equate to rats running down hospital corridors, or cockroaches all over beds. The fact is, in my experience, some of the most stomach churning things that enter hospitals are- dangerous ground, here- some of the patient 'clientele'. It's the same way a lot of MRSA gets into our hospitals, too.
    teslagirl | 19 August 2008
  • When I was a first year student nurse, I spent a lot of time cleaning and damp dusting anything that didn't move, with methylated spirit and paper towels. Weekend shifts meant even more cleaning - drug trolley, drug cupboard, treatment room trolleys and shelves. Sister would come round behind us to check that there wasn't a speck of dust left behind. Once the nurse training was taken out of hospitals that all stopped. The cleaners at my current hospital work 12 hour shifts for minimum wage. Most of them speak no English and many cannot read or write. They do not understand the labels that state where mops and buckets etc are to be used - therefore you get cleaning equipment being trailed from dirty areas to clean areas etc. But - hey - the trust saves money and can employ even more managers at ?30K to oversee cost cutting.
    Powerful Voice | 19 August 2008
  • My mum was a domestic at the local mental hospital. Then the cleaning staff were told they had to clean double the area for less pay and in less time. She quit because as she rightly stated it meant she couldn't do her job properly, she couldn't possibly clean two wards thoroughly in less time than it took to do one. The cleaning staff were all later on "let go" to make way for contract staff who just didn't care what they did and how they did it. So she views these stories with a "told you so" air! When I was doing my nurse training we spent a great deal of time cleaning patient areas, tables, beds etc. I think with the change in training this was stopped so again (someone can correct that if wrong) there is another routine of cleaning gone.
    TwoIfBySea | 19 August 2008
  • Hospitals, of all places, should be kept clean and rubbish and waste food managed in such a way to make it impossible for vermin to access.
    Upwind | 19 August 2008
  • A colleague recently caught a visitor allowing his small son to have a wee against the wall in the hospital corridor. So to be fair, lack of hygiene isn't all down to the staff.
    White Elephant | 19 August 2008
  • I think the survey related to the number of times pest controllers were called in. I'd rather the hospitals called the controllers 'just in case' than leave vermin running riot through out the hospitals just to keep their call-out rates low! I think we have to accept that in urban areas in particular where rats etc are common place, they are going to appear in environments such as hospitals. They are generally huge buildings, difficult to keep clean, with a high level of things which would attract vermin in the first place, rubbish etc. Give our poor NHS a bit more money and maybe things would improve!
    Celine | 19 August 2008
  • The cockroaches at the hospital where I trained were massive. I used to hate night duty for that reason...UGH - I am shuddering at the memory. I also worked in a hospital that was infested with fleas because it was colonised by feral cats. It was a nightmare.
    Callisto | 19 August 2008
  • hospitals are the only place i have seen cockraoches
    3littlefrogs | 19 August 2008
  • Where I worked (big London teaching hospital) cockroaches were rife. We used to catch them on night duty and put them in pots.
    zippitippitoes | 19 August 2008
  • At the moment the Palace of Westminster is infested with vermin. Now that is something we can do something about (as soon as they deign to allow the pest controllers (the electorate)to use their eradicators.
    Frank Pulley | 19 August 2008
  • Rats and roaches are everywhere. All businesses have to contend with the problem. I have found hospitals in this country to be very clean places. Sounds like another bit of lazy reporting to me.
    Alf Tupper | 19 August 2008
  • My father was in the West Middlesex Hospital about twenty years ago. visited a number of times and I was not impressed. It was dirty and the nurses were rude and uncaring. Thirty years ago my mother in law was dying in a Catholic nursing home. I was not impressed by that either. She was afraid of at least one of the sisters, a Belfast woman I remember, harsh and (I thought) with a sadistic streak. Things may well be bad now but one ought not to idealise the past, though older people, like most of the bloggers here, like me, are inclined to do just that.
    Fergus Pickering (again!) | 19 August 2008
  • Walk into any NHS hospital 30 years ago and you were hit by the reassuring smell of disinfectant. The nurses wore clean uniforms and white caps. Now, all too often, you are greeted by the smell of stale urine and the nurses are dressed like janitors. I think there is more to come on hospital hygiene; more scandals, more avoidable deaths and more management cover-ups. A friend of mine had a child in hospital. Someone (mentally disturbed) had smeared the lavatory wall with faeces, by way of grafitti. It took THREE DAYS of constant complaints to get it cleaned up.
    Trumpeter Lanfried | 19 August 2008
  • The number of "pest control visits" per month in the worst performing trusts is staggering: Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust 41 Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust 35 Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust 33 Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust 33 Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust 31 Barts and the London NHS Trust 31 York Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 27 Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust 25 Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust 17 East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust 16 So that's SIX NHS trusts who have are visited by a pest control guy more than once PER DAY...
    Cedric Ahmed | 19 August 2008
  • CAN buildings be vermin-free for ever? I'm ignorant about this but could rats and cockroaches be eradicated from the sorts of places they like to live without using rat-catchers and whatever you call chaps who kill coackroaches. Doesn't every house without a cat get mice? We get invasions of ants in our kitchen every year. So we slaughter 'em. And they are gone till next year. Don't supermarkets get rats in their stores? Are other health services totally free of rats and cockroaches? Does anybody KNOW?
    Fergus Pickering | 19 August 2008
  • I agree that the funding system in the UK is skewed. In W.Europe the insurance companies contribute large amounts in funding, everyone over a certain income level is insured, but there is no real private healthcare as we know it. Everyone is treated equally, whatever your wealth status may be.
    Familiar Clown | 19 August 2008
  • In his 1946 essay 'How the Poor Die' George Orwell observed that the wards of his Parisian hospital were infested by crickets and that you wouldn't see such infestation in an English hospital. Well, crickets seem rather charming compared with the horrors currently lurking in our NHS establishments.
    Austin Barry | 19 August 2008
  • Yes, buildings should be vermin free - prevention, not cure...and these people are expected to run our Health service! Of course, due to our Monopolistic Stalinist NHS, people cannot easily avoid any Hospital which has rats, so the consequences of their incompetence is limited.
    Tim Carpenter LPUK | 19 August 2008
  • Privatising cleaning to firms like Brengreen made David Evans MP rich but did little for overall cleanliness. Now that asylum seekers are illegals are used by cleaning contractors and budget is skewed away from cleaning what do you expect ? This is such a simple matter to deal with and should be the Chief Executive's responsibility not Gordon Brown's
    TomTom | 19 August 2008
  • Oh how the sacred cow must be worshipped! These posts are extraordinary, but do show, perhaps, the wisdom of Cameron to avoid the NHS as an issue in his first term.
    Tiberius | 19 August 2008
  • I'm a little lost by this story - the NHS Trusts have called pest control because there are signs of pests? Isn't that what they're supposed to do? Or is the suggestion that somehow NHS buildings should be fly-and-rat-proof? The scandal isn't that proper procedures are being followed for understandable problems; surely the problem would be if the NHS wasn't calling the pest control people in when it found a rat? You can tell there's nothing much to this story when the list of horrors is reduced to including a wasp's nest in A&E to make up the numbers.
    simon hb | 19 August 2008
  • Come on, this is one of the largest bureaucracies in the world. With its huge number of buildings, it is normal that you will find rats and maggots. That's why people make a living catching rats and putting down 'roach traps. On a more serious side, the real issues are why British hospitals spend Western European levels of money to achieve Eastern European levels of healthcare.
    Burton | 19 August 2008
  • Are there really rats running around the wards or is this just media hype where realistically perhaps one or two rats/mice have been near the rubbish bins? The latter I suspect.
    Tardis, Princes Risborough | 19 August 2008
  • More media hype. It would be worse if they didnt report it...stop worrying people as believe it or not insects/amimals (press-speak = vermin) also look for homes and shelter. And hospital sites are generally huge and as the post above states 'like small towns'.
    other99 | 19 August 2008
  • Some of these hospitals are like small towns. It is logical they have the same problems as the environments they are in. Seems they did the right thing. Like we all should.
    Plus ca change | 19 August 2008
  • Looks like the hospitals are also struggling with the Fortnightly Bin collection!! During hot spells our green bin is disgusting, writhing with maggots who are valiantly attempting to escape the bin by climbing out. During the summer the Green Bin should be collected each week!
    deckard, High Wycombe | 19 August 2008
  • This does not surprise me, in fact I think that half of the rodents are the one's giving the clinical care!
    David St | 19 August 2008
  • what a surprise! it would be nice to know the breakdown of each individual hospital especially Stoke Mandeville and its problems
    SBJones | 19 August 2008
  • I must admit I have not seen the report on vermin, shame on me. I work for Portsmouth hospitals and yes we dealt with fleas , yes there are rats , but we have major building works , the hospital its self is sited at the edge of the city with countryside surrounding a majority of the buildings, wildlife has been disturbed and relocated , foxes and the like. Yes the issue of cleaning has to be addressed, dont reduce cleaning staff and increase the workload which seems the norm nowadays. The general public has to be responsible as well , I witnessed recently a visitor bad mouthing the hospital recently at the top of his voice while walking down the corridor , then he proceeded drop his rubbish as he went along, he then went outside the building a lit a cigarette next to a sign saying no smoking !!!!!!!!! Just who is in the wrong!!!!!!!!!
    loren hare | 18 August 2008
  • Reduce incidents by better cleaning and staff education/ pride in their work/ organisation.Low moral / stress and high patient input doesn't help either.
    Anonymous | 18 August 2008
  • I feel that the pest control figures show that the Trusts are taking positive action as we are all aware of the increasing rat population. One example of pest controllers being called to this Trust is that we have three large building projects underway. As a result we have large volumes of building workers on site. This in turn has required additional catering facilities and subsequent litter.
    Anonymous | 18 August 2008
  • All figures can be manipulated. An "increase" in reporting can only be a good thing... it means someone has identified a problem and is dealing with it NOT ignoring it. I work for Hull Trust... which has the second highest reporting rate. The figures are not detailed as to what was reported, but on the subject of rats... Hull is a Dock City so there is a higher than average amount of them in this area. We also, like most Citys have a fair share of fast food outlets. I still feel that reporting means identifying a problem not ignoring it and that can only be a good thing.
    Rosie | 18 August 2008
  • Who does this web-site work for- David Cameron by any chance? Get stuffed tories!!
    Anonymous | 18 August 2008
  • i think you should worry if some hospitals are not inviting pest control i have never seen a.rat or cokroach in my wards at st thomas' that is probably because they keep watch to ensure these do not survive you would be deceiving your self if you say they donot exist especially if the building is old
    Anonymous | 18 August 2008
  • I agree with 'arblist'. I can go back to a time when the bread was buttered for breakfast on the wards, and then covered with damp teatowels after to keep moist. One morning when we removed the towels there were cockroaches running between the slices (would they have been better with mayonnaise?). I also spend an unfortunate time in a Florida hospital, when I went into the ensuite bathroom and turned on the light, the cockroaches scurried away into the dark again. When I mentioned this to a nurse she just laughed and said 'What do you expect -this is Florida!'
    gogs | 17 August 2008
  • i think the figures are misleading as we have called pest controllers to checl/locate/ investigate when somebody happened to come across one roach, which I think is a positive action which should be encouraged throughout all Hospitals. in which case, no one can conclude the actual number of pest found/deatroyed as some callout could be a precautionary measure.
    S.Thangavelo | 15 August 2008
  • I think its a good idea that pest control are called into hospitals, because people visit hospitals there is bound to be vermins in hospitals it does not mean that these hospitals are dirty or are cleaned proberly, i just think its a way of making sure the environment is kept clean and safe for both patients and the staff of the hospitalswith due refrence to hospital aquired infections.
    sherifat gbadamosi | 15 August 2008
  • surely a high callout of pest control is a good thing, it means staff are vigilant and not ignoring the problem. All places where there are many people and food consumption are bound to be more prone to pests! this report is misleading and detrimental to the trusts reputation, unfairly! (also hospitals have many pipes and we are near the train lines what do people expect!)
    Bernie Steedman | 15 August 2008
  • Put Alan Johnson in the Big Brother house with Mr T from the A-Team for six weeks. After not getting any female action I am sure Mr T will look upon Mr J with great favour. We can than all watch as Mr T does to Mr J what he and his Labour pimps have done to the NHS!
    Doctor Truth Hurts | 14 August 2008
  • what we need now is action. so far all this talking has achieved nothing. this loony labour government has to go. the nhs has got to be run like a plc with a board of management that will be held to account. labour has filled the nhs with pen pushers that used to work in the old county councils. remember the nerds that used to get teased at school? well they have got their revenge by becoming 'managers' within the nhs! the whole doh is full of these *******. all they do is ****, ****, **** over statistics and diagrams and have 'brain storming sessions' which undoubtedly involves more ******. labour and the mutts that are in charge have ****** all over the nhs and are wiping their ***** **** on all of us... the general public.
    ex-doh | 14 August 2008
  • Well what do they expect!? The NHS used to have a proud professional hygine service, but they sold it off to tin-pot contractors and agencies! Duh! You get what you pay for and it does what it says on the tin!
    Hagbard Celine | 14 August 2008
  • Im thinking this has been blown out of proportion. Vermin have always existed where there is a food supply, and always will. The NHS has employed vermin control, so I cannot see what all the fuss is about.
    arblist | 14 August 2008
  • from all the scare stories over recent years i expected hospitials to look in a much worse state behind the scenes than they do. having visited lots of hospitials & various other NHS buildings over the last few months in my new job i cant recall seeing anything like that so i doubt its a real problem*. *real problem as in out of control rather than rats exist & you need to control them.
    hooli | 14 August 2008
  • work for the Department of Health and can only imagine what this will have unleashed for my colleagues. The report did say that 70% of reported incidents were not in clinical areas. Personally given the gigantic nature of the NHS Estates, with many hospitals occupying huge tracts of land with extensive outbuildings, I'm not surprised that cumulatively pest controllers have been called out many many times. Fair play to the Tories, its a political kick in the teeth that will tweak all the desired sensibilities of the British public despite being, IMO, a non story
    pumpetypump | 14 August 2008
  • hat a state eh! Hospitals in Nottingham have rats in the maternity wards etc
    David Essex | 14 August 2008
  • Can't talk about vermin but the last time we were unfortunate enough to have to attend A&E at our local flagship PFI hospital we had the usual wait and saw some of the routine evening 'cleaning' being done. What we saw was as illuminating as it was shoddy. A middleaged woman the size of a small oil tanker and about as manoeuvrable, pushed a extremely foul looking mop around the toilet floors at approaching the speed of plate tectonic drift. Cormers and awkward areas clearly weren't part of her remit and when it came to the basins and taps a quick wipe over with a cloth were all they got. Thankfully we couldn't see how she dealt with the WCs themselves but suffice to say we used plenty of the alcohol gel on leaving the hospital. Standards have improved since, we are told, but I don't suppose she's any more diligent now than she was then and until the cleaning staff are more professional nothing will change.
    Osem | 14 August 2008
  • An elderly friend of mine (who trained as a physio in the 40s) went to visit a friend of hers in hospital recently. She was disgusted and upset by the standards of cleanliness. She'd placed her handbag on the floor only to find when she'd picked it up later that the urine bag of the patient in the next bed had leaked all over the floor soaking the bottom of her bag. The nursing staff who had not been busy only wanted to know if she wanted a bag to put the contents of her handbag in. They weren't concerned that it had happened. Contrast this with the regime (which my friend says is an accurate description of standards of training) portrayed in Ian McEwan's novel Atonement. "Every morning the beds were pushed into the centre so that the probationers could polish the floor with a heavy bumper that a girl on her own could barely swing from side to side. The floors were to be swept three times a day. Vacated lockers were scrubbed, mattresses fumigated, brass coat-hooks, doorknobs and keyholes were buffed. The woodwork - doors as well as skirting - was washed down with carbolic solution, and so were the beds themselves, the iron frames as well as springs. The students scoured, wiped and dried bedpans and bottles till they shone like dinner plates ... Between tasks, perhaps a dozen times a day, the students scrubbed their cracked and bleeding chilblained hands under freezing water. The war against germs never ceased. The probationers were initiated into the cult of hygiene. They learned that there was nothing so loathsome as a wisp of blanket fluff hiding under a bed, concealing within its form a battalion, a whole division, of bacteria. The everyday practice of boiling, scurbbing, buffing and wiping became the bade of the students' proffessional pride, to which all personal comfort must be sacrificed." I don't think any of us want to go back to the days when being a student nurse was back breaking, but there has to be more emphasis on hygiene. And that means a matron must have overall control of hygiene standards without having to go higher up a bureacratic chain to get things done!
    Labour's NOT working! | 14 August 2008
  • Let's put it this way, this has all been started, by poor management of the hospitals, and they may say different, but the major problem of hospital, where they use a main contractor, and instead of having cleaners on the SAME wards or parts of the hospital, they will change them, and gurranteed, these days, they will use agency staff, which are totally rubbish, hospitals will use deep cleaners, but once thew job is done, it is down to cleaners, and they are poorly paid, and this is the other problem, what you need is say ONE company covering say Middlesex, say for ONE month ONLY, this way, the contract can be reviewed after that month is over, and gurranteed, that company will want to keep that contract, as it is megabucks, l was in hygiene for a long time, and l can assure you what l saw each day, was appalling, these hospitals have a duty to protect the patient, and at the moment they are not, we have to blame central government, for cutting costs in the national health service, my local hospital, has a brand new FRONT building, they have knocked down the side buildings which you can see from the road, and these are being built as HOUSES, and the main hopsital wards is in the OLD building at the back, and hasn't been built on, that is the NHS, for you, and the money we pay as car parking, is being put into someones pocket, we have to get rid of all the pen pushers from hospitals, to put the money into where it should be, patient care.
    P*****d Off! | 14 August 2008
  • It wouldn't cost a great deal (by NHS standards) to have a 'hit squad' of cleaners available to target problem establishments. If hospitals were subject to independant inspection in the same way that schools are checked then once a problem is identified the 'super cleaners' could be sent in to do a full floor to ceiling blitz. One could even consider firing a couple of relevant managerial types following such a visit to help focus their minds..
    DaiNasty | 14 August 2008
  • Whoever you believe is responsible in political terms, however widescale the problem may or may not be the fact is it is a problem and the general state of hospitals for many people in this country is getting worse. Who solves it simple the government does and that for the last ten years though hopefully not much longer is labour and despite throwing massive amounts of money at the NHS the returns have not justified the money. I do not believe this is a problem of medical staff it is a problem of the multitudes of management that now infest the NHS at every level complicating and confusing the simplest medical matters in the rush to justify their own salary.
    Dr Jonas Clarke | 14 August 2008
  • The idea of infestations of bed bugs in hospitals is especially horrible I think. Bed bugs are really difficult to get rid of, and there's nothing to stop a new patient bringing a fresh batch in, or a discharged patient taking a batch home.
    freezin | 14 August 2008
  • I think this is another piece of media sensationalism. The report merely points out the number of times that NHS establishments used pest control authorities. The NHS does not operate in a vacuum. It operates in the real world like the rest of us ,where there are spiders,roaches,mice and rats. I gurantee there are plenty of restuarants,food producers and such that have regular visits from pest control. Its simply a matter of taking care of business. What would the press rather have them do? Have flea circuses on the wards or ratatouille for tea every night? I have been in take aways (doing my job!) where i have seen live pests and vermin in contact with the food they are going to serve to the public ! Many of these places dont spend money on pest control because they are too irresponsible. Take some very good advice-never go into a kebab/burger/takeaway shop unless you are very sure of it. I don't but then ive witnessed what goes on.
    Vlad_Dracul | 14 August 2008
  • Why am i not surprised and even more i believe it totally after seeing conditions at a local hospital that i will only describe as completely disgusting and completely unhygenic. Oh please labour tell me once more how you have saved the NHS
    RizzyKing | 14 August 2008
  • I am delighted, that NHS 247 has started this debate, l worked in hygiene for years, and especially hospitals, Matrons, have to be brought back, for many reasons, the companies that deal with the hygiene of hospitals, are a disgrace, and only want the money, they pay the staff pittance of a wage, and therefore don't get the work done, l worked for one company, and the things that they got away with, well my wife wouldn't allow it in our house, this is why you have vermin in hospitals, the contractors cut costs to save money, and this is why they don't give a damn, Matrons, showed that they have the guts and the bottle to get this work done, remember, the matron made her daily runs, and instructed her 'sisters' with a rod of iron, bring them back, oh l forgot, the hospitals would have to get rid of five pen pushers to pay the wages of matrons, but there again, it would be well worth it, when l was a kid in hospital in Hammersmith, the matron would come in with a white glove, and check everything, even put her hand inside the metal bed pan, to see if it was clean.
    Arthur Gray | 14 August 2008
  • I think if a fraction of what the UK public donates to other countries was spent here instead, we probably wouldn't have such a problem.
    Enuff | 14 August 2008
  • This is not a funny situation. The problem is caused by local hospital management- it is driven from the top down.If hospital management wants the problem solved it must invoke discipline. I volunteer in a local US hospital and if I see something not right (for example blood spots on the floor) I immediately go to the charge nurse and get the cleaning staff to fix it there and then.
    Rational Concepts USA | 14 August 2008
  • All the technology,All the advance medicines we keep being told about & yet our hospitals are filthier now than years & years ago,Good old Soap & water,Uniforms should never be worn off the hospital premises,Long hair should be scraped back,I know of a nurse who mucks out her horses in her uniform its disgraceful & i have told her so,It beggers belief that this in the 21st century is regular headline news,Bring back Matron,stop the sitting on beds by visitors,oh i dont know its just a nightmare.
    Jane1960 | 14 August 2008
  • Bring back Matron, everything was so much better when there was a Matron on the wards
    Clarie Finch | 14 August 2008
  • The biggest infestation of rats is in The Houses of Parliament, and we pay them.
    sleep2much | 14 August 2008
  • Where do the politicians go when they are sick i wonder... probably private... stick them in these hospitals let them catch a virus for once, because they have the power to moan publicly..
    ism52 | 14 August 2008
  • my son was in hospital last wk tuesday till friday at the royal oldham hospital think that was 1 of the lucky ones as i nor other mums seen anything like that on the ward he was in or around the hospital
    Mrs Lesley Hope, Manchester | 14 August 2008
  • this is no surprise at all, when my other half eas in hospital the bloody drip that had been taken out of his foot was left on the floor and there was also a fair bit of blood left to dry also.
    Young Po | 14 August 2008
  • Yes the hospitals have a responsibility but there are pest problems in many other places, mostly due to people throwing food on the floor because it is biodegradable. This is why I agree with fines for littering because when you litter the floor you feed the filthy vermin that can spread disease. I say put plastic PCs around hospitals and fine people who throw litter outside what is supposed to be a health organisation.
    fyffee | 14 August 2008
  • I live next door to the Royal Sussex county hospital here in Brighton which was named and shamed for being filthy. It is common to see its staff wandering the streets in their uniforms. Anybody is free to wander around this filthy place at any time I have decided to take out extremely expensive health insurance which l can hardly afford because if ever l became ill, l wouldn't wish to end up in that filthy dump where hospital acquired infections are rife.
    rog2 | 14 August 2008
  • twenty five years ago I was working in an old city hospital and the sight of cockroaches scurrying around at night was common sight, so may be this is not new
    kathy | 14 August 2008
  • I bet the MP's 2nd homes don't have rats. I wonder why????
    talktime | 14 August 2008
  • Gordon Clown, what do you have to say about this? What happened to your promises to clean up hospitals???
    Lord Nelson | 14 August 2008
  • my husband has been in the Sheikh khalifa here in Abu Dhabi the cleanliness is second to none, it puts the cleaning in the uk to shame, in a country that you would think they had to fight bugs it is spotless, england should stop spending money on pen pushers and spend more on cleaners.bring back the matron who had control over all this.
    valerie13, United Arab Emirates | 14 August 2008
  • Okay !! I see they would rather kill the people than the rats cockroaches flies ants maggots - Sack the bosses !! No excuses excepted ...
    isabellea | 14 August 2008
  • Holy Crap! What the hell do they expect when we go into a hospital with one ailment and leave with another. How does this help save lives or cut cost when we get sicker or visiting the hospital? It would seem that they are trying to kill us to help not have to cover expenses or deal with us. What the hell is this world coming to???
    CouldCareLess, USA baby! | 14 August 2008
  • ... anytime the medical industry can't find a cure for something - they blame rats - rats can't give you aids - tuberculosis - gonorrhea -syphyllis - herpes - typhus - typhoid - yellow fever - malaria - poliomylitus - cholera -cancer - elephantiasis - give the little guys a break ...
    toronstganymede | 14 August 2008
  • The Conservatives have stooped even lower than usual this time. so low they are down in the gutters and sewers from where the vermin come. This is nothing short of the most cynical scare mongering in order to attract votes. All large organisations occupying large buildings which have underground services and ducts, food present and in the NHS's case body parts and corpses are bound to attract vermin and insects. So what's new? Well nothing so far as I can tell because the Conservatives neglected to include any comparative data from previous years. I wonder why? Perhaps it's because the levels of infestations and possible incidents they found are perfectly normal!
    Anonymous, Cambridge | 14 August 2008
  • We are dammed if we call these services in and dammed if we don't!! As aleady voiced many of our hospitals are old buildings which attract vermin, also some infestations are brought in by our patient's which we then have to deal with. I am unsure of Patrick Yay's background but would sugest he has not heard of the deal the Labour Party offered Clinicians, it is this that is crippling the NHS not the numbers of managers! In many NHS organisations it is the clinicians who manage and are supported by individuals with the unfortunate title of manager. In my experience doctors are far from passive regarding anything that affects their profession and patient's welfare is a secondary consideration to many.
    Anonymous | 14 August 2008
  • I think the wrong spin has been put on this for political gain. Surely we should be using pest control services whenever necessary. All large buildings have a contract to deal with such issues and that is the right thing to do.
    Paula Diaper Pharmacist | 14 August 2008
  • I am not surprised as the NHS has run out of funding since Nrs. Virginia Bottomley from the CONSERVATIVE PARTY had made a mess of reform when she was a Srecretary of State for Health during the tory power without consulting the professionals. The unnecessarily appointed too many MANAGERS in the NHS has destroyed the NHS budjet. Now Political Correctness is moresimportant than Clinical correctness. Money saving is the First Priority than Life saving Priority in the practice of modern Medicine in the British NHS. There will be more pests in the NHS hospital as long as these rubbish, untrained managers spending money as if they win a Jackpot because NHS money is not their money. All doctors are passive and withdrawn from the active participation for the patient's welfare and every clinicad directiors and the excecutive are just Medical Politicians trying the o please the government rather than please the patients anfd safe their life, promote their health. The caring professiona has vanished into the political air. I am frustrated and fed up with the inhumane medical practice and planning to leave the NHs /medicine completely soon with very sad and disappointment in y noble profession. Virginia Bottomly had done the irrepairable damage to British NHs system which used to be the best in Europe. Tory Party is just a Hypocrits like Divid Cameron playing the negative politics and he has no answer and also their policy will destroy the NHS completely if they get the power . They will do the worst damage like Virginia Bottomly. It is not just Pest Control, please do not be short sighted as it is happening in every espect of NHS especially in patien care. There is no point making a guidline as Clinical Governess if there is no involvement of patien as patien choice and no proper Risk Assessment for patients. It is waste of time to invent such guide lines without any implementation. NHS is dying. NHS is crippled. Nhs is out of control in the hands of untrained managers squandering the public tax payers money. Look at the Medical colleges. There are far less British/ English medical students now, I am an examiner at King's college. There is only 30& of the candidates at the Medical final Exams are English. 70% are foreigners. Why English children are not taking Medivine as their parents discourage their children from choosing the meidcal career as we parents doctors suffered and facing the inhumane medical pracrice dictated by the un trained Managers. TOO MANY MANAGERS AND TOO MANY COOKS. British NHS wil be destroyed completely in next 2 to 3 decades if it continues like this in future. Managers office Equipments and their carpets are more important than the PESt Control. Managers meetings, Managers travelling expenses, Fridge and furnatures for Managers are more important than the Pest Control, hospital cleaning, better food for patients, more nurses for the patien care, edequate medical supply, and support for the clinician. All the clinical staffs and all the NHS staffs are depressed and thiking of leaving the NHs except the Managers who are having good time at the tax payers money for bossing around and abusing the power, overspending the money in the unnecessary ares. All down the drain of the Tax payers Mioney. Public is sufferung but Government does not care. Very Sad Situations. Dr. P. Yay
    Patrick Yay | 14 August 2008
  • The premises we inhabit range from Victorian buildings and prefabricated sheds to brand-new builds. Rats, mice, cockroaches and festering pigeons are facts of life; they will always be with us. Older buildings are likely to be more susceptible to some types of infestation. Given the nature of the business we're in, any organisation that doesn't have regular pest control visits is likely to have a far greater pest problem than the ones that do; they're just not owning up to it! Good housekeeping will reduce some types of problem but inevitably, it will be a war of attrition against the others.
    Philip D | 14 August 2008
  • i work at hull hospitals . we have had incidents reported at castle hill hospital on the ward i work on , purely because we do not want the patients to suffer . we have been infested with ants and had some mosquitoes . at hull royal infirmary the hospital is in the city centre and due to extensive building work the rats come out of the sewers and onto the site .
    Anonymous | 14 August 2008
  • I called pest control out Friday morning as several staff in theatres had been bitten. We wondered if there was something in the theatre blues as different theatre areas had also been bitten. A man came out that afternoon to discuss it with me. He saw some of the bites on staff's legs and informed me that it was a flea problem. We decided to send the uniforms back to laundry, get some replacements and for him to treat the area that the uniforms were stored. The uiforms were sent back the same day and he treated the area within 24 hours (over the weekend) then we were supplied with new uniforms on the Monday morning. I think that it is every staff members responsibility to call out pest control when there are problems and the fact that we are at the top can be from several reasons ranging from being pro-active to the floods, railway line, old buildings etc. No hospital will be exempt from vermin, in one form or anonther and for anyone to think that they are is very naive. If we were all pro-active, allowed the wards to organise their cleaners rather than outsourcing and took pride in our work and areas rather than taking every opportunity to bad mouth it, our working conditions could be better. Afterall, the alternative to NHS treatment is private and after working in the USA, seeing people go bankrupt because of medical bills, it's not an alternative that I would like to see here!!!!!!
    Sarah D. | 14 August 2008
  • Of course no conclusions can be drawn from these figures without much more detail. For example, what constitutes a 'visit' and is 'visit' defined consistently by every hospital? Could a Trust with hospitals on two sites have twice as many 'visits' as an otherwise identical Trust on a single site, simply because of its geographical configuration? Also important is the ratio of preventative to reactive visits. The more preventative visits, the cleaner the hospital is likely to be. It would also be useful to know, for example, how many incidents relate to cockroaches in kitchens, which I would be very concerned about, and how many to ants and wasps in the grounds and gardens, which wouldn't worry me at all.
    D Rowe | 14 August 2008
  • 1. Highly yes 2. To fumigate carpets in offices for fleas and mites + to put down Cockroach traps 3. could be lots for example proactive, Local enviromental factors inside or outside the trust, type of patients, poor cleaning etc too many to list, thats why the figures are misleading. 4. why would you want to reduce them if you don't know what they were for, for example if they were proactive you may want more. In general thogh better cleaning and waste management. 5. In some cases Yes.
    With held | 14 August 2008
  • These figures are clearly misleading, at best they show which Trusts care most in dealing with vermin by regular calls. Even that hides the full truth that most of the calls in my Trust are either follow-up visits to check that issues have been successfully dealt with or routine pre-arranged visits as part of regular monitoring. Furthermore the figures take no account of Trust size or multi-site issues. We must hope that this is not the way data is used by a responsible Government!
    Robert Insall | 14 August 2008
  • The NHS have provided its patient care services from old premises ever since it was formed, 60 years ago. These old bildings are frequently modified and provide the ideal habitat for pests such as rats and cockroaches. I am sure that infestations have not increased in the last few years, but have been present in the old buildings all along. The recent increase in pest-control activity is due to increasing awareness of these infestations as part of the drive to improve cleanliness and reduce hospital-acquired infections. Compared to other healthcare providers in the UK and elesewhere, the NHS has difficulty in funding capital projects such as replacing buildings. Patients also resist closure of old buildings as they associate this with closure of services rather than modernisation. This results in most hospital premises consisting of an improbable collection of mismatched buildings temporary structures, link corridoors and ad-hoc storage areas. In the long run it would have been cheaper to demolish the old buildings and replace them with purpouse built structures as required. This would have also have helped reduce infestation.
    James Tattersall | 14 August 2008
  • All buildings have pest control issues and the type and frequncy should be noted also the incidence in clinical areas. The trusts that have been named and shamed have reported honestly the incidents and is an example of good practice and pro acyive management.
    Anonymous | 13 August 2008
  • I would say that the Trusts that are bringing in the pest controller on a regular basis are aware of what is happening in their grounds/hospital. Stats can be manipulated to say whatever you wish them to!
    Brian Griffiths | 13 August 2008
  • I really couldnt care less if one party wants to get at another with these figures. Firstly if the government would not have sold of the cleaning departments of hospitals to private foreign companies for a cheaper price and them employ people that are well below standards then this problem would not be happening. My mother has cleaned at a hospital for over 30 years and does do a proper job but even she says things have changed Sodexho who now manages most of the cleaning contracts at hospitals are neglectfull dont check jobs have been done correctly and hire students during summer time for cheap labour, dont train them correctly then things like this will continue to happen and get worse. Patients will die over and over again because of dirty and rodent run hospitals i mean vermin here and not the managers of the hospital or these private cleaning companies. Give the cleaning duties back to NHS and not private cheaper companies and we will see a vast improvement sooner rather than later .
    sharon | 13 August 2008
  • I was rushed to hospital in October 1996 with severe pains in my head. Building work was going on and there was dust and building rubbish everywhere. You could see it settling. Workmen were walking around the hospital in their filthy clothing. I needed fluid taking off my spine and they could not find a clean enough ward to do the procedure on. After half a day they settled for what they said would have to do, although it was not as clean as they would have liked. Searching for a clean ward should not have been an issue. They should have all been clean.
    Lynne Anthony | 13 August 2008
  • Before we blame the NHS perhaps we should look to oursleves. It's known that we have become a dirty nation just look at the way our streets are littered. People don't wash either like they used to, don't take pride in themselves like they used to either. Wear clothes time and time again till they smell. It's all down to this easy going attitude and the pride in ourselves as gone. Hospitals are like small cities they have to be managed and they don't do to badly at all but like all cities it's up to the people that use it. People come in dirty don't care about cleaniless perhaps it's time the NHS staff refused to nurse dirty people or see them in AE perhaps nows the time to point out to people it's un-acceptable to have lice in their hair and dirty toe nails and finger nails and unwashed bodies and dirty clothes, then look how things would change when they did enter the NHS hospitals it would be safer for staff and others. I know I've nursed, so before we shout at the NHS we should take a look at ourselves who create some of the problems in the first place through neglect.
    Barbara Wilkins | 13 August 2008
  • hospitals should be one of the cleanest places there are. if we can't trust our hospitals to be clean from such things as rats and maggots then what hope do we have in other places being clean? u shouldn't have to worry about finding such pests in your hospital. it's bad enough about the superbugs and that adds stress onto patients that should be resting, but worrying about pests as well? its un called for. the goverment should help the NHS trust to clean up these infested hospitals.
    Roxxi Khan | 13 August 2008
  • university hospital of wales in cardiff is run by idiots i know because i work there the rat and vermin problem is terrible not to mention the health care is a joke my mother got mrsa there from a routing operation and when questioned why ? excuses excuses excuses time things where changed or people should be able to opt out of nationional insurance and persue a private option.
    anon | 13 August 2008
  • The maggots are not a problem they only eat dead flesh and are actually used in some hospital for cleaning foul wounds out, so maybe seeing maggots was not exagerated, the staff just didn't explain properley or more like they couldn't explain due to patient confidentality this is when it bites you in the bum.
    niktaz | 13 August 2008
  • The Cons are kicking up a fuss. They are the ones that started the rot with getting rid of Matron, bringing in "Managers", contracting out cleaning and many other cut backs - so that they could bring income tax down to 22p in the pound. You gets what you pay for ! We've all got rats and dare I say there are quite a few in the Houses of Parliament?
    Peter C | 13 August 2008
  • I'm not surprised at these findings. Hospitals years ago always smelled of disinfectant, and wards were kept constantly clean and tidy. Staff uniforms were professionally cleaned and not worn outside of the hospital. All this may have seemed rather formal and intimidating, but it was done for very good reason. When I had my baby at a local hospital a few years ago, I was on the ward for 4 days. In that time I saw a cleaner only once, and all she did was sweep the middle of the floor, without moving trolleys or going anywhere near the beds. Rubbish (a tissue - probably used) which was under my bed when I got there was still there when I left 4 days later. The bathroom, which was shared by half a dozen or so women with newborns was filthy, and had a musty smell like old wellies.Its all good & well these hospitals going through a process of 'deep cleaning' and putting handwash gel dispensers everywhere, but they really must look at the bigger picture of maintaining regular and ongoing hygeine standards, not only the floors and surfaces, but also the linen, uniforms etc. Give responsibility for upkeep of these standards back to matron I say, and get rid of these useless contract cleaners who seem to be answerable to nobody!!! I will be back on the same ward soon, and taking my bottle of zoflora and dettox wipes with me!!!
    J | 13 August 2008
  • get real i worked in pest control back in the 80s untill the 90s and it was a problem then ,you get rats mice allsorts of insects you allways will.Be it nhs,bupa,poshest hotels its just some idiot trying to score points .the private sector keep quiet about these things.
    Geoff Walsall | 13 August 2008
  • The whole cleaning process is Money orientated. No body gives a dam about hygiene and that is a fact. They pay the cleaners pennies so get the type of staff who will work for than amount mainly immigrants. Supervisors have to look after several locations so skive off as no on knows where they are. Hospital staff just accept it as it is not their job so that is why the hospitals are the way they are. As a High school governor a few years ago I tendered for the school cleaning contract on behalf of the school. I under-cut the commercial firms by ?10000, gave the cleaning staff a pay rise and attendance bonus. The money we saved bought a new computer based library for the kids. It only take the will to do it, there is no excuse for dirty work places anywhere unless you accept greed as a reason.
    Joey Jones | 13 August 2008
  • hospitals have always suffered from pest infestation it is nothing new ! these are big public buildings . also I do not think it is inherant of foreign workers that they are not clean there are enough white lazy cleaners around believe me. cleaners are not seen as part of the hospital team and are emplyed by outside contracters (who are reluctant to sack any one as people just dont want the job) so there is no team spirit or control by matron really despite this being the reason the matrons came back ,......waste of time and a lot of money I say. get rid of some of the managers who hardly do ANYTHING AND BRING IN PROPER CLEANERS
    gill | 13 August 2008
  • As an ex nurse I am not surprized that there is a problem like this. Around any home there will be some evidence of Pests, be they ants or rats. It is said we are never more than three metres away from a rat anywhere in this country. What is important is that these pest are not alowed to affect our health and steps must be taken to ensure they do not come into contact with patients in hospitals. When I trained sister told me to top dust one day, so I went around the ward dusting the tops of doors windows locker etc. I was determined she was not going to catch me out. When I had finished she called me into her office and asked if I was satified that I done a complete job. I was. She then pointed out that I had not dusted the pipes that ran around the ward just inches from the ceiling. Needless to say I started over with these pipes and did everything else again. It was all damp dusting and my lunch break was forfit. The rot starts at the top so lets bring back real Matrons, with real power, who if they don't 'top dust' lose their jobs. I agree with many of the posted comments, but think on this in a recent survey of male and female toilets 7 out of ten males did not wash their hands and a surprizing 9 out of ten women also failed to wash their hands. one father was observed telling his child to wash when he failed to do likewise. Is it any surprize we have super bugs?
    Cy (ex nurse) | 13 August 2008
  • IF the privete firm's do there investigative work properly { WATER_GAS_ELECTRIC_RAILWAY_TUBE NETWORK } work with pest control be 4 they start disturbing underground. when dockland started the pest's moved out. more mass work stratford or any other mass development. the conservative's on TV scaremongering again. dig it up it will be some other's problem.
    X Files | 13 August 2008
  • Pest problem with the NHS? That is no way to talk about Alan Johnson.
    Andy4Justice | 13 August 2008
  • The true vermin are the Conservative Government that wrecked the NHS. New Labour has tried to rebuild but the Cons still control management. Don't let them ruin the country again!
    Colin | 13 August 2008
  • In 1934 I was in an isolation hospital with diphtheria. First thing each morning, the nurses would chase the mice around the ward. It was a bit of welcome fun. Get rid of budgeting managers and bring back the Matrons.
    Warminster Hilton | 13 August 2008
  • No body gives a dam about hygiene and that is a fact. They pay the cleaners pennies so get the type of staff who will work for than amount mainly immigrants. As an ex nurse when the hospital employed cleaners through the hospital and not outside contractors the wards where cleaned thoroughly It is about time the Government got there act together "some hope not in a life time".
    Yvonne | 13 August 2008
  • When my son was in hospital the cleaning was atrocious. Cleaners would use the same cloth for all five beds and apart from something in a spray bottle, that I assumed was sterilizing fluid I did not see one drop of water. The floor was swept daily but only spot moped with a dry mop. In the ten days I was there this was the only cleaning I witnessed. on our arrival I could see under a bedside unit was a sock that remained there till we left. I pointed it out to a nurse, she replied it was a good job I told her because they would get in trouble if any senior safe had seen it. This was children's unit with venerable children and babys; I couldn't wait to get my son home before he cort something nasty. Do hospitals need to give cleaners training on how to clean, do they do an NVQ?
    Jack, Swindon | 13 August 2008
  • Its the first time i hear that many NHS Hospitals have problems with vermins/pest. This is down to the last three PMs who do not want the voters to know and keep a lid on delivery a good NHS Services which is also realising that it is on the path to the terrified merging all the GPs and hospitals to POLYCLINICS to deliver all type of NHS services under one roof. Introducing POLYCLINICS wasn't Gordon Brown's or Lord Darzi's idea it was TonY BLAIR'S!!!!! In fact, the one or two POLYCLINIC(S) is based at each county compare to around 50 GP centres and at least 3 hospitals on each county. Labour government even want the private sector to run POLYCLINICS and to retain NHS Services and their assets as State Control. The control of Accident & Emergency departments will be sold off to possibly Virgin owner Richard Brandson. This is the most craziest idea ever invented! This is the wonder of the Great Britain not voting for Labour, but the Tories. The old Tories were not friend of the NHS and now David Cameron seems to be friend of the NHS but he might be lying like John Major did on certain issues..... This is not new Labour, this is 'Capitalist Labour'! Capitalist Labour let down the poor but still benefitting the rich who do not pay a penny more in taxes! It is a real meaning that Labour do not love the poor. Look at their expensive expenses on transport and services. The abolition of 10p starter income-based tax came into force on 1st April 2008 were confirmed by former Chancellor Gordon Brown in Budget 2007 and yet when he became Prime Minster he is enjoying to allow new Chancellor Alistair Darling to carry on the abolition of the 10p starter income-based tax. This is not Labour Party we have in mind anymore!!!!! Gordon Brown must go..........
    Disillusion By Labour | 13 August 2008
  • The only real infestation they need to deal with is all of the managers and beauracratic idiots trying to set new targets every week. The TORIES started the rot in the NHS by changing it to health trusts so they could employ 10x the management staff and eventually close it down. This particular labour government will go down in political history as the one that did so little with such a large initial majority.
    Chris | 13 August 2008
  • It can only get worse under Gordon Brown with EEC admission rules to our Hospitals,with overworked Staff and shortages of Resources,where are the patients of the uk supposed to go,another Disaster from,yes,you got it Right;Gordon Brown.!!
    Michael | 13 August 2008
  • are the pests Primary care trust bosses and government bosses i bet they are more of a nusiance than mice or rats!!!!!!!
    mrs roland rat | 13 August 2008
  • And they wonder why the hospitals are full of bacteria like MRSA, Ecoli and Clostridium Difficile. Bet the vermin is healthy enough and thriving though!
    True Brit | 13 August 2008
  • as an ex pest control operative i can say pests have always infested hospitals,i started on that type of work 20 years ago,now retired, dont go blameing gordon brown
    jack | 13 August 2008
  • This is "nit-picking" in more senses than one,and yet another example of "silly season"reportage.All it does is to remind of the potential threat to our Health Service should (heaven help us the tories return to power.
    Bill | 13 August 2008
  • pests have always been in hospitals.In the sixties when I started ,they where there and will still be there today.I do not believe that the hospitals are any cleaner,remember it was Maggie Thacher who brought in the private contract cleaners,and no one else. It is time someone told these cleaners that all wards have corners and are not round,and yes beds get dust on them .Stop blaming Gordon Brown and start blaming those people who started this,so private companies could make a killing.one real matron would sort a hospital out in weeks,but that would upset the greedy conservatives and their money mad voters.
    john | 13 August 2008
  • When is someone going to stop nurses from going home in their uniforms? We have one here who works on a maternity ward and has kids and animals at home.........
    Angry | 13 August 2008
  • all staff uniforms should be washed in the hospital, the staff go shopping, etc probably change their babys bums in it need i say more dont let them out in it.
    rachel | 13 August 2008
  • Bees and Wasps Dead pigeons caught in netting to prevent them fouling/ nesting courtyards- unfortunately pigeons have been seen to decompose in the netting in front of staffs/patients vision
    Anonymous | 13 August 2008
  • I think the comments made so far are typical of the false perceptions people have made about the NHS. Do you honestly think that for the last 100 years wasps havent made nests in the air vents, mice and rats havent congragted around the rubbish left by visitors and patients alike. Why should it be nurses or management that have to face the firing squad every single time when people show no respect towards the facilities offered by hospitals. Smokers - how many of you have just thrown your cigarette on the floor outside the hospital, how many have gone to through something in the bin and missed an never bothered to pick it up? There are people in this world who find it acceptable to smear excrement around the toilet, vomit all over the floor and just walk away. You wouldnt do this at home why at a hospital? Yes in some hospitals as with many buildings the cleaners arent the best, how many of you out there would volunteer to clean a hospital every day though? Sometimes you have to make the best of what you can get, nurses arent soley responsible for cleaning a ward either, bearing in mind their is a mass shortage of nurses, through a lack of employable staff, so how pray tell can they expected to do everything? I agree nurses and doctors for that matter should not leave the building or even have lunch in their working clothes however how clean do you think they are at the end of a shift? Maybe if everyone did a little bit more when visiting a hospital and understood the pressures of working in one your would appreciate what happens everyday in one. In addition its unaccpetable to call people 'rats' these people are saving lives, working endless shifts, and putting up with small minded individuals everyday to help you and your family! Maybe you should remember that and show them some support and respect as most of them are just as fustrated with the problems within the NHS as you are.
    Your Clueless | 13 August 2008
  • I worked in hospital maintenance many years ago in Halifax and they were riddled with rats, cockroaches and everything else you could think of.
    Fran | 13 August 2008
  • Conservatives are idots, of course a hospital, which as we know is a very large building, will have pests, and require pest control. Most hotel and restaurants have some form of pest control (look for the little green and black boxes around the edge of the building)I would be worried if no pest control was in place. No hospital has a "Zero" pest control problem, and any political party should know better than to scaremonger the voting publc .......... we are not that stupid. This is just a party stating the bleeding obvious .......... hospitals have pests like anywhere else that has warmth, food and people.
    ukfirefighter | 13 August 2008
  • Totally miss leading- I am glad trusts are reporting problems for pest control. On visit to Houses of parliment a number of years a guide pointed out the cockroach
    CPB | 13 August 2008
  • Behind the scenes at hospitals, unfortunately, provide the perfect environment for cockroaches, vermin and insect infestation. It is unavoidable. What is important however is how the outbreaks are handled.
    Jaded | 13 August 2008
  • This is a disgrace, to think all those illegal immigrants that come over here with all their many diseases, for FREE TREATMENT and they have to put up with this as well.
    J Price | 13 August 2008
  • Disease and vermin are rife in our hospitals. Welcome to the NHS under nu-labour!
    Rob | 13 August 2008
  • I work in a hospital and we have had many problems with rats over the past 6 months, yet when pest control are rung they just come down with a few rat poison pellets and hope for the best. Not enough is done. Im not suprised there are so many germs and infections flying around the hospitals.
    Anony | 13 August 2008
  • But what the NHS dont tell you and niether do the private helath vare systems is that the very people that you subcontract into hospitals are one of the reasons why so many people in this country contract MRSA after an operation niether when you try to get compensation from such hospitals do they admit liability for thier actions and consequently you land up disabled out of work and lose your home wife and kids Lovely stuff huh what a Caring country "Not the pague's of london all over again is it ?? "
    Mark | 13 August 2008
  • I had surgery in April and while in hospital the ward had a big problem with ants, they were on my bed and the bed table. Its disturbing that this happens, I have never experianced this before, they were not on the private ward, but were on the NHS ward.
    Anon | 13 August 2008
  • Dirty Hospitals 'Plagued By Vermin' \nLabour get everwhere don't they- \nprobably monitoring me now, I'll be against the wall for this one
    Dung Dung | 13 August 2008
  • When I was in hospital towards the end of 2006 a whole ward had to be closed because of a serious infection. Why is this kind of problem happening so frequently in this Country?
    Mike Wadge | 13 August 2008
  • Its a disgrace, but not unexpected. Rats are attracted by food scraps - eg poor cleaning. Pigeons are the same. Bullying visitors into cleaning their hands with antibiotics harmful to their own immune system is not the answer. Properly trained, paid and concientious cleaning and kitchen staff might be, however.
    Matt Probert, Harefield | 13 August 2008
  • Rats and bugs have always lurked in the shadows - the solution is never make it easy for them. Bugs are a different kettle of fish and I would imagine doctors and nurses have their own solution to this. Unfortunately, we have immunised and introduced so many antibiotics that man is now unable to fight the little blighters. Do we find other antibiotics to destroy the already immune viruses or build humans into a strength to be reconed with? AND so it goes on.
    Goard | 13 August 2008
  • So the Tories get some dodgy figures about how many times hospitals have had to kill pigeons, and they use it to needlessly terrify old people who have to go into hospital, just to get a cheap headline. Colour me unsurprised.
    Red Rooster | 13 August 2008
  • So now what? Ignore the problems to avoid being in the statistics? Hospitals, like every other building in the country are doing their best, but the vermin and bugs are part of the problem of large, public access sites. If the pest controllers are called in then surely the hospitals are trying to deal with the problem as early as possible! Besides, the human vermin drunks are much more of a hazard to people in hospitals!
    Marsha | 13 August 2008
  • Maybe it is time to focus less on twisting statistics to meet targets and bring these filthy hospitals up to 21st century standards. They are a disgrace!
    Carsten | 13 August 2008
  • Pests are attracted to most buildings whether they are in the private or public sector. You are likely to see pests at some point in some form or another. There is a problem with large buildings, like hospitals, in particular and many buildings with a lot of grounds are also attacked.
    Malcolm Padley, Rentokil | 13 August 2008
  • Insects such as flies, ants or cockroaches can be carriers of superbugs. These infective insects disperse through the hospital, possibly into clinically sensitive areas. If they come into contact with a vulnerable patient, there is a chance the patient may then develop a healthcare-acquired infection.
    Clive Boase, Pest Management Consultancy | 13 August 2008
  • The Hygiene Code requires NHS bodies to have a pest control policy that anticipates and manages this issue. Trusts should take rapid action and follow through with surveillance in place to avoid pest incidents and minimize hazards. Use of pest control is a sign of good proactive management.
    Ivan Lewis, Health Minister | 13 August 2008
  • Labour have said over and over that they will improve cleanliness in our hospitals, but these figures clearly show that they are failing.
    Andrew Lansley MP | 13 August 2008
  • I stayed for a couple of months in a children's psychiatric ward a few years ago, and there was a flea infestation. It was not dealt with, as the staff were supposed to provide a live specimen for testing - I guess nobody issuing that order had ever tried to catch a flea. Every child in there became infested by the scabies mite, which burrows around under the skin causing intense itching. I left the hospital, and was told by my GP that the symptoms everybody had were not from "everybody getting eczema at the same time", as the doctor in the hospital had said, but this parasite. My GP told me this was probably from improperly cleaned fabrics in the hospital.
    Lucy | 13 August 2008
  • I've just spent six weeks at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. During the two weeks after an operation on my spine I was allowed in a wheelchair into the grounds of the hospital. At a pond a mere 10 metres from the main entrance I counted no more than 30 rats running in a 10 minute period. Gazing through the window of my ward I saw many tiny cockroaches wandering about the window frame. We should really look into the costs of dealing with this problem on a large scale. We are letting things like this get out of hand. As one of the richest economies in the world why cant we spend a bit of time and expense in sorting this out.
    Ian | 13 August 2008
  • I've just spent six weeks at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. During the two weeks after an operation on my spine I was allowed in a wheelchair into the grounds of the hospital. At a pond a mere 10 metres from the main entrance I counted no more than 30 rats running in a 10 minute period. Gazing through the window of my ward I saw many tiny cockroaches wandering about the window frame. We should really look into the costs of dealing with this problem on a large scale. We are letting things like this get out of hand. As one of the richest economies in the world why cant we spend a bit of time and expense in sorting this out.
    Ian | 13 August 2008
  • As a locum I saw loads of rats at Basildon University Hospital at the end of 2007. Not many hospitals officials seem be very concerned about the problem. Rats are attracted by easy access to food leftovers. These need to be locked away, inaccessible to rats or the question of food disposal needs to receive more attention.
    Dr R T Woerden | 13 August 2008
  • Last December my wife was at Kings College Hospital giving birth to our son. The labour was long and continued through the night, so I went in search of refreshments to the canteen, which was open only for access to vending machines. I was incredibly surprised to see a large rat doing its rounds. It was not fazed by my presence, it looked like it was an established part of the hospital and knew where it was going as it headed from one part of the canteen to another. I reported this to the midwife, who seemed genuinely shocked, but it appeared to be just 'another' let down for her.
    Robert Tudgey | 13 August 2008
  • My son was admitted to Lewisham Hospital children's surgical ward in June when he was four-weeks old. I saw a cockroach in the bathroom. It was an absolute shock, especially on a children's ward, a surgical ward. The cleaners didn't seem to have any pride in the job at all. They had the latest equipment but they weren't bothered about moving things to clean underneath them. One cleaner wiped the sink with a paper towel. I complained to the NHS Trust that no action was taken and I have still had no reply.
    Caroline Ward-Lewis | 13 August 2008
  • Those of you who cry "sack the government" at the first sign of vermin in hospitals had better realise that it won't get any better under any other government. Large buidings are breeding grounds for vermin, hospitals happen to be large buildings, QED. Unless we bulldoze every single hospital in the UK and replace them with state of the art facilities with electrified floors and rodent-killing robotic machines patrolling the air ducts, it's always going to be an issue.
    Peter Guillam | 13 August 2008
  • If the rodents don't get you the c-diff will!,with all this record "investment" in the NHS the squalor of the hospitals I've been in is an absolute disgrace.PS Gordon can we have our money back?
    niceonecyril | 13 August 2008
  • Never actually seen any vermin in hospitals, but my last two hospital experiences were pretty nasty. The Whittington is filthy, and made me very glad I was only an outpatient. My mother in law recently had surgery at a hospital in Walsall (I forget the name). In the recovery ward, it seemed to be up to the visitors to do all the cleaning. We had to bring in new blankets and pillow cases (the ones my m-i-l was lying in smelled quite bad). In the bed next to her was a woman with no visitors who we ended up taking to the toilet (we couldn't get a nurse to do it), and generally mopping up after. I was quite surprised to be told by a senior charge nurse, fairly rudely, that it wasn't her job to clean up spillages - even more surprised that she didn't send anybody else to do it either.
    TristramShandy | 13 August 2008
  • My father, who has just retired after working as an NHS physician for 40 years, has plenty of stories about how dirty hospitals in the UK used to be. The London teaching hospitals (for example, the Middlesex) were infested with vermin when he was a medical student in the 1960's. One favorite game they used to play with the nursing staff during long night shifts was to don rubber boots, go into one of the long corridors connecting the wards, switch the lights off for a few minutes, and place bets on how many cockroaches they could stamp on when the lights were switched back on. They regularly managed to get at least 50 between them, and on a few occasions, over a hundred (the boots were thoroughly cleaned and sterilised afterwards, by the way). I'm not sure what this says about standards today. Things haven't changed much by the looks of it. Hygeine standards clearly haven't been improved by "contracting out" to the cheapest cleaners, but vermin in hospitals is an endemic problem that has always been there and one that can't be solved by a maid with a mop. Large, old buildings have plenty of spaces that are especially vulnerable to rats, mice, cockroaches and the like. Pest control is always going to be a problem in hospitals, like it or not, that Facilities Managers will have to deal with.
    Sorbet | 13 August 2008
  • Of course there are huge discrepencies in the number of incidents reported. Some hospitals systems may not be as robust as others and some may be deliberately avoiding recording of these incidents. Any inner city hospital will have some pest problems due to the amount of human traffic, rubbish and waste accumulated on a daily basis. Active control of pests should be seen in a positive light. I work in one of the top five hospitals listed and pest problems are extremely rare. I believe that the main problem can be from ants and pigeons. Yes! pigeons are a pest.
    E. Armour | 13 August 2008
  • The fact that the Trust has been transparent in reporting the information about pest control calls surely has to be applauded! At least this is positive. This Trust (Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals) has a particular reason for a higher level of vermin reported. Part of the hospital is close to a railway line, which is always a magnet for rats. Plus the city was unfortunately badly flooded last year which, again, has helped the rat population increase manifold. I believe other Trusts have either been dishonest (as has been proved in other investigations where self reporting has been the normal process) or simply have not bothered to reply. We will never eradicate "pests" totally from any environment, unfortunately they are and always will be a natural phenomena. The post by Dr Opoku is neither helpful nor appropriate in this instance. Negative reporting of the NHS is a national pasttime, rarely are the good news stories feted so widely I am proud to do my job and give the best care I can despite the "people that run the NHS" to quote Dr Opoku, who sounds embittered about something obviously personal - perhaps overlooked for promotion or some such!!!!
    A Senior Nurse | 13 August 2008
  • The real vermin are the people that run the NHS! At last journalists with the guts to expose the weak, nasty and out of touch NHS. Hospitals in the third world are better than most of our hospitals yet year after year that Tony Blair went on TV stating "we have the best health service in the world", what a misleading b*****! Keep this up. Your TV content is innovative too with a strong schedule, it has, almost overnight, become the channel of choice in the homes of healthcare workers; a success that can be attributed solely to you and not to the lousy Department of Health. This success can be replicated across other sectors that need strong, independent thought leadership and not New Labour gobbledy gook!
    Dr Kwame Opoku | 12 August 2008
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