The Other NHS Audits: What Are the Efficacy and External Audits?

The National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness introduced three auditing systems for NHS Trusts, but we’ve heard enough about the technical audit and its 50-point check; so what are the other two? Dan Teare, Sector Director at mpro5, explains all…
In short, the efficacy audit is designed to measure how you clean, as opposed to what you clean and how frequently. Efficaciousness is determined using evidence-based, scientific methods. This will include:
There are many more metrics to be measured on, and all these questions are rated on a simple scale, it’s either a 1 or a 0.
While trusts have the freedom to determine audit frequency, patient and visitor-facing areas must be audited for cleaning effectiveness at least once a year. But I’d say once a year is a low bar: your operations will benefit from doing these audits more often, possibly even on a monthly basis.
Unfortunately, you can’t only audit your shiniest areas. With one exception, you will need to select areas at random.
That exception is areas specifically targeted for performance review as they have not achieved safe standards consistently, or because they have high rates of infection. For areas that score 80% or less the audit findings should be used to create an improvement plan with support such as further training, investment in new equipment and materials, increased supervision, more resources and changing cleaning times.
Then there’s the External Audit that involves collaborating with neighbouring facilities (also known as “auditing your mates”). Teaming up is a quick and easy way to find suitably qualified staff to act as auditors, often on a reciprocal basis.
This third-party audit performs a vital role. There are no scores involved: it’s all about the systems you have in place. Are your functional risk areas divided sensibly? Have you got a system to identify low-performing areas and how effective is your remediation process?
Admittedly, this audit is entirely subjective but it’s no less valuable for that. It’s a way of learning from others’ experiences and sharing best practice.
Like the Efficacy Audit, this check is purely advisory but, recognising how powerful a fresh pair of eyes can be, switched-on trusts will perform this independent assessment anyway for the often-eye-opening insights it can reveal.
I’d be remiss not to point out that all three of these audits are enhanced drastically with a digital solution. You can turn your audit from a fixed event to a continuous process: cleaners can gather data as they work via a works management app, and send this data straight to the cloud.
Such systems enable managers to see which areas of the healthcare facility are cleaned well and which not so well by viewing dashboard reports – and these comparisons can provide valuable insight.
For example, if you’re getting a low score for your Technical Audit but a high score for your Efficacy Audit, the mismatch tells you your cleaners are doing their jobs properly but they’re simply stretched too thin. Conversely, if you score highly on your Technical Audit but poorly on the Efficacy Audit, this could mean the cleaners are not doing their jobs well and you’re overstaffed in that space: they’re all doing half a job.
I’ll end by pointing out the obvious. The Standards’ three-audit system has been expressly designed to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts: to give a comprehensive view of all aspects of cleaning performance, from what areas are cleaned to how well they’re cleaned and, lastly, ideas for improvement. If your trust focuses on the Technical Audit to the exclusion of everything else, you really are missing a trick.
Global Health & Pharma Magazine looks to keep readers and web users updated with the latest innovations and advancements within the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement | 1 year | Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category . |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional | 11 months | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". |
CookieLawInfoConsent | 1 year | Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. |
viewed_cookie_policy | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
zfccn | session | Zoho sets this cookie for website security when a request is sent to campaigns. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_zcsr_tmp | session | Zoho sets this cookie for the login function on the website. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_ga | 2 years | The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors. |
_ga_7GTFNZD3Y9 | 2 years | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. |
_gat_gtag_UA_63302014_1 | 1 minute | Set by Google to distinguish users. |
_gid | 1 day | Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. |
iutk | 5 months 27 days | This cookie is used by Issuu analytic system to gather information regarding visitor activity on Issuu products. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
mc | 1 year 1 month | Quantserve sets the mc cookie to anonymously track user behaviour on the website. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
4662279173 | session | No description available. |
zabUserId | 1 year | No description available. |
zabVisitId | session | No description available. |
zft-sdc | 9 hours | No description |
zps-tgr-dts | 1 year | No description |
zsc5bf6c5dde2ed4839ad2d941ab4c83bfa | 30 minutes | No description |