Hospital cleaning firm Mitie misses target

Private firm Mitie has repeatedly failed to meet cleaning and catering standards at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust

A target for cleanliness was missed in operating theatres and intensive care units at the Royal Cornwall Hospital, the NHS trust has said.

Private contractor Mitie, which started the contract in October, failed to attain the cleaning target for "very high risk" areas.

A report said Mitie's success rate for the contract's first six months was 95.82% against its target of 96%.

The trust said there was "robust monitoring" of the Mitie contract.

The report said Mitie had met targets on lower risk areas such as general hospital wards.

'Systematic failures'

Health bosses deducted more than 50% of Mitie's profits during February because of a failure to meet standards, it emerged in April.

The trust said: "Mitie has responded to concerns raised and we are working together to ensure the delivery of a safe, high quality service for our patients."

A Mitie spokesman said: "The trust report correctly noted that we have made significant improvements to the services since the start of the contract.

"Patient feedback has been that cleanliness and food standards have improved.

"We have just missed one of the targets by the narrowest of margins but we are working closely with the trust to further improve the cleaning service."

Jack Horwood of the union Unison said: "This report follows two similar reports in January and April of this year and, unfortunately, the latest report does not come as a surprise to us. It shows a long line of systematic failures by the organisation.

"This is a key example of how privatisation of the NHS is failing service users, and we will continue to campaign against further outsourcing."