GP Surgeries: Ventilation
(asked on 8th July 2021) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance he (a) has issued and (b) plans to issue to GPs and clinical commissioning groups on ensuring adequate ventilation in GP surgeries in order to reduce the risk of covid-19 infection; by what standards GPs and clinical commissioning groups should plan and measure that ventilation; what steps he plans to take to ensure that guidance on ventilation is followed and risk accordingly reduced; and whether he plans to allocate funding to improving ventilation standards.
‘COVID-19: Guidance for maintaining services within health and care settings. Infection prevention and control recommendations Version 1.2’ was issued to ensure that risk assessments should include evaluation of ventilation to ensure maximum workplace risk mitigation. This guidance is available at the following link:
‘Health Technical Memorandum 03-01 Specialised ventilation for healthcare premises. Part A: The concept, design, specification, installation and acceptance testing of healthcare ventilation systems’ gives comprehensive advice and guidance on the design, installation and operation of specialised building and engineering technology Health Technical Memorandum 03-01 Part A gives comprehensive advice that for other types of healthcare facility that are outside of the hospital setting such as general practitioner practices, a risk assessment of the nature of the treatment being delivered, condition of the patients and intensity of use needs to be undertaken by those responsible for the facility in order to determine the extent to which this guidance will be applicable. The guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/HTM0301-PartA-accessible-F6.pdf
The Care Quality Commission is responsible for compliance with the Health Technical Memoranda under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (revised). There are no plans to allocate funding to improving ventilation standards or to make funding available to improve standards of ventilation.