Prentis: Says MRSA can be avoided

Unison has called for an end to contract cleaning and an increase in NHS manpower in order to reduce the number of people infected with the MRSA superbug.

Publishing research on Monday, the public sector union says that cost cutting and contracting out have led to a significant increase in MRSA infections in British hospitals.

The union's call comes in the wake of an independent report by Steve Davies, a senior research fellow at Cardiff University.

In research released by Unison, he claims that the number of cleaners in the NHS fell to a low of 55,000 in 2003/04 - a reduction from 100,000 over the last two decades.

"Cleaning is a labour intensive industry where staff costs account for up to 93 per cent of the cost of cleaning," says the union.

"Staff cuts have been driven by contractors squeezing costs to boost profits and gain efficiencies, by reducing numbers, hours and cutting wages.

"This in turn has led to recruitment and retention problems, high staff turnover and poor morale all of which affect the quality of hospital cleaning services."

Dave Prentis, Unison's general secretary, said the financial cost of hospital infections "runs into billions" and inflicts great "human suffering" on patients and their families.

Soaring rates

"To underestimate the contribution that cleaning staff can make to infection control is plain foolish. As the number of cleaners have gone down infection rates have soared," he said.

"The government has admitted that contracting out cleaning services has led to falling standards of hospital hygiene.

"Prevention is better and cheaper than controlling infection, and resources should be directed towards increasing staff, better education and training, as well as improving and maintenance of hospital wards."

The Conservatives said the report underlined the need for urgent ministerial action on hospital cleanliness.

"MRSA cases have doubled on this government's watch but the public need to be able to expect that their hospitals will be clean and safe," said shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley.

"Labour have said time and again they will introduce measures to improve ward cleanliness – in other words all talk."