Deep-cleaning the NHS

Do you remember Gordon Brown promising to have every hospital in the deep cleaned over a period of a year? I wrote soon after that "There are no plans to centrally monitor the deep cleaning of hospitals." and reported that the Department of Health had said that "no specific date has been set for either the commencement or completion of the deep-clean programme." and that "There are also no plans to assess the effectiveness of deep-cleaning."

Today I learn that the money to fund the "deep cleaning" hasn't even reached all of the hospitals. The Telegraph reports that "Primary care trusts across the country admitted yesterday that they would fail to hit Monday's deadline, while others have hastily scheduled cleaning programmes for the weeekend. Figures show that only a quarter of the £57 million allocated for deep-cleaning has reached hospitals."


Something for David Cameron to bring up at PMQs on Wednesday? If he did, I wonder what fraudulent statistics Gordon Brown would counter with?