[lettie]

Have any of you actually complained about the visitor's toilets on level 2, and if so, who did you complain to and what was done about it?

Those toilets are cleaned nightly, I think, when there are no visitors around. Visitors often use those toilets to smoke, grafitti and other such misdemeanors as there is no security in that area during the day and staff never use them. Thankfully, patients are not nursed in the visitors toilets (although with current NHS bed pressures, it wouldn't surprise me), so on the cleaning priority list, the visitor's loo isn't exactly a priority.

Let me ask you....... How would your bathroom at home look if a few hundred people visited it on a daily basis and how often would you clean it? Rather than complain on an open forum, why don't you write to the powers that be up at the hospital and express your concerns, or even apply for a job on the domestic services and see if you can keep up with the cleaning any better than the current staff.

It seems to me that people are more than willing to have a go at the public services but are unwilling to acknowledge the good work that is done by them.

As for nurses uniforms, the new policy should put paid to people travelling in their uniforms. Bear in mind that the vast majority of people seen in town, in uniform, are actually nursing home staff or community staff. Nurses, however, have been travelling in uniform for donkey's years. I remember my Gaberdine and the dark blue travelling cloaks which we wore over the uniform. In those days MRSA wasn't the problem that it is now, even though everybody travelled in uniform. When all staff have their new uniforms, there will hopefully be less people travelling around in them.

It must be borne in mind that the NHS has far less beds than it did when it first began in the 40's but treats 3 times more patients than it did back then. I think that this is a massive issue, the beds don't even go cold these days before the next patient is on them. They are cleaned quickly with detergent and made up again. Gone are the days when beds were left to air a bit before re-making. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that more patients + less beds = more chance of infection.