SNAP inspections have found that only one third of hospitals in England meet the top standard for cleanliness. Private hospitals, included in the survey for the first time, did better in general than NHS ones, but some private mental health hospitals were not so clean.

The six dirtiest hospitals were all NHS mental health hospitals. They indicated “serious and widespread” problems, the Healthcare Commission said.

Worst of all was Barrow Hospital in Bristol, a mental hospital, which scored 36 per cent. It had “an unacceptably dirty environment”, the commission’s inspectors said: floors marked with cigarette burns, stains on the chairs, food on the floor, graffiti-daubed walls, a ventilation grill thick with dust and dirt, cobwebs, dirty windows, urine stains and mildew and stains from bodily fluids on the bottom of a hoist chair.

At the other extreme, two NHS hospitals scored 99 per cent: the John Radcliffe, Oxford, and the Royal Berkshire, Reading. One private acute hospital, Essex Nuffield, Brentwood, and one private mental hospital, Harriet Tubman House, Birmingham, did even better, scoring 100 per cent.

Harriet Tubman House, named after a black American who escaped from slavery into Canada in the 19th century, is restricted to Afro-Carribbean and Asian women, most of them from Birmingham and the West Midlands.

The inspections were carried out between July and September. Teams of inspectors swooped on hospitals without warning, choosing 61 NHS hospitals that had scored poorly in a patient survey, another 10 that had done well, and 28 randomly chosen private hospitals.

The inspectors made a visual check of cleanliness in two wards, the outpatient department and the A&E department. The team also asked questions about cleaning.

The results were used to categorise hospitals into four bands, the best in band 1 and the worst in band 4.

The commission’s report, published yesterday, lists 33 hospitals in Band 1, 22 from the NHS and 11 from the private sector. Band 2 contained 43 hospitals, including four from the private sector. Band 3 contained 16 hospitals, seven from the private sector. Band 4 contained six hospitals, all of them NHS mental health and community hospitals.

Simon Gillespie, head of operations at the Healthcare Commission, said: “We have found some excellent performance. It is a myth to say all our hospitals are dirty. Among the highest scores were hospitals of all types. This shows that healthcare managers can achieve the highest standards, and all should on behalf of patients. Nevertheless, the findings show that too many hospitals are failing to perform as well as they could. ”

Jane Kennedy, a health minister, said: “Of the 23 hospitals that had serious problems with refurbishment or cleanliness, 19 were in independent or NHS mental health care settings. We announced £130 million capital funding specifically to update mental health environments and will announce further work on enhancing the environment soon.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Tower block death blaze ‘suspicious’
• Licence payers fund BBC chief's £8m pension
• Potter star falls victim to swine flu