Hospital denies using dirty sheets

An NHS hospital has denied claims that its staff had been told to turn over dirty sheets instead of using fresh ones between patients.

A newspaper report said that housekeeping staff at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, had been asked to re-use bed sheets and pillowcases wherever possible to cut a £500,000 laundry bill.

The Daily Mail reported that posters in the hospital's linen cupboards and on doors into the A&E department reminded workers that each item costs 0.275 pence to clean.

But the hospital stressed it had never asked its staff to re-use sheets between patients.

Barbara Beal, Good Hope Hospital's director, said: "It has never been the practice at Good Hope for any patient, either on the ward or in A&E, to use the same sheets as another.

"Sheets are changed according to best practise guidelines. These are approved by control of infection nurses and endorsed by a consultant microbiologist and the director of infection prevention and control.

"The guidelines insist on daily sheet changes for all infected patients and whenever a sheet is soiled."

A hospital spokeswoman said that posters about saving linen costs were put up three years ago, when the hospital was managed by a private firm, but added that they should have all been taken down.

She said staff may sometimes 'top n' tail' the sheets of one patient if they do not have any infection, but said they had never been told to do so in between patients.

However, Tony Field, chairman of Birmingham-based MRSA Support, criticised the hospital and said all sheets should be changed daily for all patients. He said: "It's awful. Hospitals are places where infection is rife. Any hospital that claims it is clean should not do this kind of thing."

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