THE number of spot checks carried out by hospital inspectors will increase later this year after a number of vacancies were filled, a healthcare chief has told MSPs.

Alastair Delaney said Healthcare Improvement Scotland had hired three new inspectors in the past six weeks, and was advertising to fill additional vacancies.

It comes after previous concerns that the number of hospital safety and cleanliness inspections carried out by the watchdog had halved since 2014.

Giving evidence to the Health and Sport Committee, Mr Delaney said: "In the coming year, there are plans that will start to see the number of inspections move back up again."

Read more: Scientists quit after 'critical' patient safety concerns at QEUH 'ignored' by managers 

Mr Delaney, who joined the organisation as quality assurance director18 months ago, was also quizzed on communication between infection control experts and building maintenance managers at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

It comes after inspectors described “challenges” in the relationship between the estates department and the infection control team at the hospital, and a backlog of some 300 repairs, during a series of unannounced visits in January.

Mr Delaney said: "It was a feature of what we found in the QEUH and its associated sites.

"It's also something that we would be concerned about across the country as a whole because it is absolutely essential that there is good working relationships between the nursing staff, particularly for infection control, and the buildings staff.

"Obviously in that particular circumstance, we had quite a large backlog of repairs to be done and the communication was not particularly great about how those were being managed and what happened when they were being reported and potentially having to be reported again.

"So it demonstrated that that level of leadership governance was really important.

"The benefit for us in that inspection was that we were able to stand back and look at that, and it became a key feature because the frontline staff were doing as good a job as they could in the circumstances and we give praise to them in the actual report.

"Some of the problems were more systemic - about governance and relationships."

Read more: Inspectors critical after spot check visit to QEUH 

The QEUH has been in the spotlight after two patients died, having contracted a fungal infection linked to pigeon droppings.

Prosecutors are investigating both deaths, which involve a 73-year-old woman and a boy, 10, who was being treated for cancer.

Police have also been instructed to probe the death of a 63-year-old woman, Mito Kaur, at the hospital last week.

She was being treated for pneumonia but had also contracted a separate fungal infection caused by mould normally found in soil and rotting fruit and vegetables.

The Health and Sport Committee has launched its inquiry in the wake of the QEUH deaths to examine whether infection control is adequate and what more can be done to improve patient safety at hospitals across Scotland.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said last month that public confidence in the NHS had been "shaken".

She has commissioned an investigation into the design, construction, commissioning and the continuing maintenance of the flagship £842 million superhospital, which opened in 2015.

Read more: Alarm raised over contamination in water supply BEFORE Glasgow superhospital opened

It comes after another recent report found that there were concerns over bacterial contamination of the water supply on the site even before it opened.

Within months, children at the Royal Hospital for Children - adjacent to the QEUH - had fallen ill with water-borne infections which eventually resulted in paediatric cancer wards being closed.

Philip Couser, director of Public Health at NHS National Services Scotland, said that despite the recent high-profile cases, there was "nothing to suggest we're seeing any significant increase" in hospital bugs.

He added that Scotland performed "very well" compared to Europe in terms of deaths linked to hospital infections, and that around 10% of all healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in Scotland could be linked to building problems such as issues with ventilation or plumbing.

However, MSPs were also told that no routine monitoring is carried out to test for levels of hospital bugs, except for the water-borne bacteria Legionella, in a bid to prevent outbreaks.

Health Protection Scotland confirmed that it is only notified of patient deaths caused by HAIs.

Asked whether board only become aware of contamination in building services once patients are infected, Mr Couser said: "From a Health Protection Scotland perspective, yes. As far as I'm aware, we don't receive any reports or data around any proactive testing of the environment for possible micro-organisms of any particular sort.

"As far as Health Protection Scotland is concerned, the data we receive is about patient incidents."