Claims Against The Nhs For Dirty Ambulances?

Dirty ambulances and equipment have put patients at risk of contracting superbug infections, according to a new report from the Care Quality Commission. Inspectors carried out spot-checks at seven East Midlands Ambulance Service stations and uncovered a catalogue of hygiene problems that could put vulnerable patients at risk before they even reached the hospital.

The inspectors found that medical equipment that should have been thrown away after one use was cleaned and re-used and some ambulances checked by the team had not been thoroughly cleaned and were 'visibly dirty'.

They also found that not all of the ambulances checked were carrying hand detergent wipes, which are considered to be a key element in stopping the spread of superbugs such as MRSA and C. difficile. Stretchers, ventilator units and defibrillators were also found to be dirty.

It seems incredible that such a report should emerge at a time when the NHS is engaged in an ongoing battle to defeat superbug infection in hospitals that the method of transportation for the weak, sick and vulnerable - precisely those most at risk from infection - should be in such a poor state of cleanliness.

Officials from the inspector's team spoke to ambulance staff and found that 19 out of the 30 they interviewed had not received any formal training in the prevention and control of infections for more than two years because they were 'too busy'.

This is an extraordinary statement, considering the massive amount of publicity and obvious public concerns over the relentless march of superbug infections in hospitals and care units.

It seems that there has been a weak link in the chain that has been completely overlooked until now - the ambulances themselves. This is just one inspection in one region, but it does beg the question - how safe and how clean are ambulances across the country as a whole?

Hospitals have faced a wave of enforced changes in a constant battle to defeat the threat to patients of MRSA and C. difficile superbugs, yet the ambulance service seems to have been quietly overlooked in the general furore. But it is at that point that patients are probably at their most vulnerable - in that short journey to the health centre.

If that journey is in an ambulance that is dirty and carries a high risk of infection, it is not the ambulance service that has to deal with the consequences, but the hospital and health trust it delivers that patient to. Proving that a superbug infection is the fault of poor hygiene standards in the ambulance will be very difficult and could complicate any claims for compensation brought by victims.

But a fundamental shift has to take place in how ambulance hygiene is approached which seems, at first glance, a pretty simple strategy to adopt. The one point that will probably raise many people's hackles more than anything else is the excuse that training in hygiene had been allowed to slide because people were 'too busy'.

It would be assumed that hygiene is one of the fundamental principles of running an ambulance service and to allow that to slide for two years is inexcusable. The Care Quality Commission has given the East Midlands Ambulance Service one month to improve their standards of hygiene.

But they must be wondering how many other services up and down the country also fail to meet basic hygiene requirements because of understaffing, lack of information or just an ignorance of the risks involved.

Perhaps this one incident will prove to be the uncomfortable glare of publicity that forces other services to examine their own standards and raise them accordingly, protecting the weak and vulnerable from the risk of contracting a deadly superbug on the way to the hospital.