Blair hospital 'a health hazard'

A major London hospital has admitted it is losing the battle to keep its casualty department clean.

Managers at the Royal Free, which last night treated Tony Blair, say they do not have enough cleaners to cope.

It comes after Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt signalled tougher penalties for hospitals which fail to combat the MRSA superbug.

The Royal Free admitted to " problems maintaining hygiene" after patient Gerald Gaffin criticised standardsof cleanliness there. Retired dentist Mr Gaffin, who worked in the NHS for 40 years, said: "I was shocked. I found blood spattered on the floor and walls of the accident and emergency department. It was terrible. Even a charge nurse told me that it was 'grim.' "

Mr Gaffin, of Hampstead, said: "The tragedy is that politicians talk of a billion pounds invested in the NHS. If you go to the Royal Free, you would be hard pressed to see any signs of it." When a bed was finally found for him he said that cleaners left needle covers and other medical debris underneath his bed and locker.

He also had to wait six hours on a ward as doctors finished paperwork to discharge him.

In a letter to hospital chiefs, Mr Gaffin said: "While your medical staff, doctors and nurses alike, are prepared to do their utmost for patients within the hospital, the underlying management systems are simply not up to the demands of the 21st century." Lorna Donegan, the hospital's divisional director of medical specialities, said today: "At the moment there are some problems maintaining hygiene standards in A&E since the department does not currently have 24-hour access to domestic staff."

She said that although staff can page "on-call" cleaners there is not currently a cleaner in the department 24 hours a day.

The number of patients attending A&E there has increased by 15 per cent in the past year. Royal Free bosses are now planning to increase supervision of hygiene in emergency wards.

Ms Donegan admitted that the hospital is under huge pressure to meet tough government targets and does not have enough computers to do the paperwork to allow them to discharge patients promptly.

She said: "There are no easy answers to these questions as long as the trust is operating within extremely tight financial constraints." A Royal Free spokeswoman said: "It is important to remember that this patient arrived with a dangerous condition, was given prompt and appropriate treatment, and is entirely happy with the clinical care he received.

" There were clearly things which did not go smoothly and we will learn any lessons we can. We are very sorry that Mr Gaffin was not happy with some of the non-clinical aspects of his care but can only reiterate that he was with us at a very busy time and unfortunately some things took longer than usual.

"We welcome his praise for the clinical care he received.

"On cleaning generally, although we do have vacancies to which we are currently recruiting we anticipate that we will fill these few vacancies by the end of May." The Evening Standard revealed last year that A&E departments across the capital are struggling to cope with more than 5,000 patients a day.