Admin blunder blamed for hospital check fiasco

OFFICIALS have blamed an "administrative error" for the tip-off which led to hospital staff knowing which wards would be targeted during an inspection at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

The team responsible for carrying out the checks at the ERI earlier this week admitted that details of the apparently "random" inspection were sent to NHS Lothian by mistake.

This allowed cleaning and repair work to be carried out ahead of the inspectors' arrival.

The Evening News revealed yesterday how health secretary Nicola Sturgeon was horrified that the inspection – in which the Scottish Government places so much worth – had been undermined.

The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate, which admitted the error, is also considering whether or not to publish the inspection report now that it has been undermined.

But unions said today that despite an error, someone within the ERI should have admitted the process was flawed before the inspection was made.

Susan Brimelow, chief inspector of the HEI, said: "The HEI has been set up to reduce healthcare-associated infection risk to patients through a rigorous inspection framework and, accordingly, we take the integrity of the HEI inspections extremely seriously.

"It is the policy of HEI that the wards inspected are not revealed to either the hospital or the NHS board concerned until the morning of the visit.

"In this case, the ERI was inadvertently sent information about wards which were to be inspected prior to the visit.

"As a matter of urgency we have conducted an internal investigation and found an administrative error on our part in the paperwork issued prior to the visit.

"We apologise for this mistake and have reviewed our policies and procedures to ensure this does not happen again, so that the integrity of HEI visits is maintained."

Sources at the hospital told last week how officials from both NHS Lothian and Balfour Beatty – the organisation tasked with maintaining the PFI hospital – were working frantically to prepare certain areas for the inspectors' two-day visit. It then emerged that the targeted wards were known all along.

Mike Grieve, director of delivery for NHS Lothian, said that the health board had been completely exonerated of any wrongdoing.

He said: "While we welcome the apology from the chief inspector of HEI, we would like to point out that our staff worked very hard in the run up to this important visit and were left sorely disappointed by allegations of any wrong-doing.

"No information was leaked, as was suggested, and in fact we were happy to give HEI the details they provided to us as part of their visit.

"I know this allowed them to resolve this whole issue quickly."

Tom Waterson, chairman of Unison's Scottish health committee, said: "Two wrongs don't make a right.

"They had this information more than a week before the inspections, and they must have known – having read all the HEI documentation beforehand – that this wasn't right. Why has it taken nine days to realise this?

"I think we should wait for Ms Sturgeon's findings before simply blaming it on an administrative error."

• www.nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk

• www.scotland.gov.uk

• www.nhshealthquality.org

• www.balfourbeatty.com