Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will review the adequacy of his Department's current guidance to NHS trusts on how to monitor hand hygiene levels.

Auditing of hand hygiene compliance is a local responsibility, and the Department does not collect this information centrally.

The Health and Social Care Act 2008 Code of Practice on the prevention and control of infections and related guidance sets 10 compliance criteria to manage healthcare associated infections. This includes one covering infection prevention and control which refers to hand hygiene and recommends that providers undertake hand hygiene audits.

The hand hygiene provisions appear to be operating satisfactorily and it is therefore not proposed that provisions relating to guidance on hand hygiene are changed as part of the revisions to the Code of Practice, which is currently out for consultation.