Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 13 September 2017 to Question 8915 on Hospitals: Hygiene, when he plans to publish the data on hospital hand hygiene compliance.

The 2008 Health and Social Care Act’s code of practice on the prevention and control of infections requires adequate provision of hand washing facilities, information on the importance of compliance with hand hygiene for visitors, regular refresher training for health professionals and support for patients to wash their hands. The Care Quality Commission monitors compliance with this code.

NHS Improvement leads on infection prevention and control and is developing a plan that will standardise policies and guidance on hand hygiene and will be looking at a national hand hygiene data collection and reporting methodology. This project is still in development and we will be able to advise on timelines as further updates are received from NHS Improvement.