FEATURE
Viruses thrive in places where people come into close contact with each other, making care settings particularly susceptible to their spread. Healthcare associated infections (HCAIs) are believed to cost the NHS an estimated £1 billion every year. They also have a major impact on the availability of hospital beds, with infected patients requiring an average extra 11 days of care. Ensuring thorough cleaning and encouraging healthy hygiene behaviours amongst staff, patients, residents and visitors to these facilities is critical in helping minimise the risks.
One way to improve the quality of cleaning is to ensure that those involved in carrying out the work are properly treated. This is the aim of a campaign launched recently by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Facilicom UK has played a key role representing the contract cleaning sector as part of the EHRC Cleaning Taskforce and is part of the campaign to improve working conditions.
When cleaning staff are treated fairly and with dignity everyone benefits. The cleaner will be more motivated, more likely to stay in the job longer term (so have better skills and experience), standards will rise and infection control will improve.
Getting workplace cleaning right is essential for care businesses as they need to prevent the spread of illness, among staff and patients. Care workers spend a significant amount of their time at work – so making the experience as comfortable and pleasurable as possible should be a priority for the care institution.
Reducing staff absenteeism is crucial in a care setting as there are huge ramifications on operational management when having to source cover to ensure a safe service and pay the higher costs of agency staff.
When assessing care services, the Care Quality Commission asks five
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questions. Are they safe? Are they effective? Are they caring? Are they responsive to people’s needs? Are they well-led? The answer to each of these questions can be improved by effective cleaning and the fair treatment of cleaning operatives.
What is the campaign? The campaign is the result of a great deal of research by the EHRC and has been developed following the publication of its Invisible Workforce report in 2014. The report is based on in-depth interviews with cleaning operatives across England, Scotland and Wales, in the healthcare, office/ retail, transport and leisure sectors. The Invisible Workforce recognised that there were many, many great organisations out there that are delivering best practice. It also highlighted some fairly damning examples of poor practice and made people realise that there is a huge workforce in the cleaning sector, and some of them are being very badly treated. That poor treatment extends into things like improper sick pay, lack of facilities, such as lockers and breakrooms in the workplace, not being paid for holidays – the type of things that ‘white collar’ workers take for granted.
At the heart of the campaign is the understanding that if the world didn’t have cleaners it would grind to a halt and people would die. Cleaning operatives are almost an essential emergency service and their treatment should reflect that. If we didn’t have cleaners our world would be a very different place.
What does fair treatment
look like? Facilicom is a very large organisation but we’re still family- owned – so as a consequence of that family ownership we have always had a very clear approach to how to treat people that work with us; they are colleagues, not employees. We support them in many ways, including ensuring that
almost an essential emergency
operatives are “Cleaning
service and their treatment should reflect that.”
they have the correct uniform, proper payment, appropriate machinery that works, adequate training, access to all the relevant employment rights, considerate management and supervision, as well as the freedom to work without suffering any form of abuse.
We would all consider all of these to be fairly reasonable expectations.
The Cleaning Taskforce has produced a variety of products, including a poster and postcard campaign, as well as a booklet highlighting the role of cleaners to members of the general public.
There are also postcards and a handbook which take cleaning operatives through the employment rights and expectations that they should have from their employer, which are available to download on the EHRC website.
The care industry relies on a clean working environment for the safety and well-being of its employees, visitors and especially those in its care. By joining the EHRC campaign those in the care business can significantly improve not only the lives of their cleaners, but also the levels of care they are able to provide by reducing the risk of infections and providing better environments in which to work and be cared for.
www.equalityhumanrights.com
www.facilicom.co.uk
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