Hospital staff ‘lack hygiene awareness’

A SURVEY of more than 5,000 hospital patients has revealed serious issues with staff hand hygiene, a finding described yesterday as “disappointing” by Health Minister Dr James Reilly.

While more than half of patients said staff always washed their hands before examining them, 12% said it happened some of the time while almost 7% said hand washing did not occur.

One in five of those who took part in the survey last year said they did not know or could not remember whether it had occurred.

Almost 96% of patients said they had not asked health care staff to wash their hands.

“It is a very disappointing statistic and we are going to have to address this and put in place a strategy to ensure that doctors do wash their hands,” said Dr Reilly.

The minister, who was pleased that 96% felt they were treated with dignity and respect, said the survey would reassure patients and their families that they were vital to the health service restructuring programme he had promised to deliver.

Conducted for the Irish Society for Quality and Safety in Healthcare (ISQSH) and part-funded by the Health Research Board, it is the largest-ever survey of patients’ experience of public hospital services.

ISQSH said the results indicate that a patient is about 17 times more likely to be satisfied with the service they receive when they are treated with dignity and respect.

However, while most patients (88%) agreed that staff did not ignore them while discussing medical issues, one-in-10 said they were ignored, either often or some of the time.

Over 7% of patients admitted to hospital via emergency departments (ED) waited more than six hours before being seen by a doctor. And, after being seen by a doctor, almost one out of 10 waited between six and 12 hours before being admitted, with 5% having to wait more than 12 hours.

Fewer than half of patients (44%) said they were admitted to hospital via the ED, with the three most common means of admission were GP referral (20%), waiting list (11%) and consultants’ private clinics (9%).

Of those admitted via a waiting list, 10% said they had been waiting between six months and a year and 8% said they had been on a list for at least a year.

More that 60% of patients were unaware of a complaints procedure within the hospital, while 16% said they had a complaint and, of these over 30% chose not to discuss it because staff were not available or too busy.