A NATIONAL campaign to ensure NHS hospital staff regularly wash their hands is being scrapped - with one in 10 doctors still failing to meet hygiene standards.
Checks to monitor if frontline workers follow the correct procedures for cleaning their hands between patients was launched in 2007 and the results published every two months.
Now the Scottish Government has announced it is dismantling the national programme.
Health Protection Scotland, which publishes the findings of the hand washing audits, said in its latest news bulletin: "The Scottish Government informed NHS boards on August 9 the current National Hand Hygiene Campaign, including the collection, analysis and publication of bi-monthly hand hygiene data by Health Protection Scotland, will conclude on September 25."
Compliance with hand washing rules has improved significantly since the audit began. The first audit, conducted in February 2007, found the level of compliance across staff groups nationally was just 68%, while in Lanarkshire it was as low as 55%.
The latest audit in May this year found 98% of nurses following the correct procedures and 97% of allied health professionals. However, adherence among medical staff - which has long lagged behind - was 90%, down from 92% in March.
The Scottish Government supposedly has a "zero tolerance" policy for staff who fail to wash their hands correctly.
Jackson Carlaw, health spokesman for the Scottish Conservative Party, which has recently raised concern about the audit results, said: "Every time this audit is published it causes a great deal of embarrassment for the Scottish Government. It's hardly surprising it is choosing to end it on that basis.
"But it also makes a mockery of this supposed zero tolerance approach.
"Only this month one in 10 senior medical staff were found not to be washing their hands often enough, so clearly there is still work to be done. But instead, the SNP is ending the monitoring, presumably because it is sick of the bad results."
Hand washing surveillance operations were brought in by the Scottish Government along with other measures to tackle hospital infections amid the rise of superbugs such as MRSA. Since then there has been a decrease in the spread of healthcare associated infections, although experts have warned the trend is starting to plateau.
The audits involve staff treating patients being watched by local hygiene co-ordinators, giving rise to the possibility that people know when they are being observed.
Dr Richard Simpson, public health spokesman for Scottish Labour, said the system was "certainly not perfect."
He added: "The priority has to be the safest possible environment for patients and the Scottish Government and individual health boards have a responsibility to ensure hygiene rules are followed by all staff to ensure infection rates do not escalate.
"Scottish Labour is clear that a single regulatory and inspection body with teeth is required. Such a body should be able to conduct unannounced inspections, including monitoring hand hygiene, particularly if there is an increase in complaints or the number of infections."
Following the abolition of the national hand hygiene campaign with the publication of the last audit report in September, health boards will be responsible for monitoring and reporting of hand hygiene compliance.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Monitoring and reporting on hand hygiene will continue and the results, including those of staff groups, will be published and open for scrutiny.
"Responsibility will now be returned to health boards to promote local ownership and accountability.
"Boards are still expected to follow a zero tolerance approach to non-compliance with hand hygiene policy and take appropriate action against individuals or groups that are not meeting high standards."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article