Shropshire’s two main hospitals are being plagued by rodents and insects, with 250 incidents of pest infestation being reported in the last two years, figures revealed today.This included wasps in the neo-natal unit, flying ants on the wards and mosquitoes in the endoscopy department. The details were obtained and released by the Tories under the Freedom of Information Act.
Pest controllers were called out by the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, which runs the Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal, between January 2006 and April 2008.
Infestations included outbreaks of rats, maggots, cockroaches, ants, biting insects, fleas, wasps, flies, bird mites, silverfish, bed bugs, woodlice and beetles. Pigeons also caused problems.
But Trish Rowson, the trust’s director of service delivery, said: “It is unfortunately inevitable that when you are responsible for large buildings like hospitals and their extensive grounds you will face problems with pests.
“Since our role is to provide patient care, it is important that we investigate and act quickly.
“This is why we have a contract with a pest control company to help us ensure that these issues are managed effectively in our buildings and grounds.
“Their role includes routine visits to make sure that control arrangements are working well, and call-out visits so that issues can be addressed quickly before they cause problems for patients and staff.”
The Tories contacted 171 NHS trusts, of which 127 responded, almost all of which said they had experienced problems, with pest controllers called out to wipe out about 20,000 infestations, many in clinical areas.
Examples from around the UK included one horrified patient waking-up to find maggots in her slippers, rats being found in a maternity unit and a store for sterile materials infested with mice.
Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: “Labour have said . . . that they will improve cleanliness in our hospitals but these figures clearly show that they are failing.”
A spokesman from the Patients Association said the findings were “truly revolting”.
By Dave Morris and Sunita Patel
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31 Comments
Sounds wonderful. If I need the services of a hospital, I’ll take my wheelie bin and sleep in that - it’ll be cleaner.
what would tories know about hospital cleaning, they are the ones who privatised it all!!! Its their fault
We have to be sensible here as to the definition of infestation. It would be expected that the odd insect would gain entry to a hospital through a door or window but how many constitute an infestation.
The same can be said for rats, it would be expected that there would be many outside as the statistics on rodents are quite shocking.
Putting things in perspective based on the statistics above its one report per week per hospital. Sounds pretty impressive to me considering the size of the buildings and areas covered!
It’s all a storm in a teacup -the Department of Health have already said that there is no reason to associate these “visitors” with the spread of infection.
From what I’ve heard of some of the hospital food lately they probably add welcome variety to the patients’ diet.
you can’t stop these infestations you just have to hope they are dealt with swiftly..
this is just nit picking so to speak
i think its outrageus that the Tories are always running our NHS down, they have clearly manipulated some pest control statistics to give the impression that hospitals are full of rats to strike fear into the electorate, well ok RH Shrewsbury is tired and old but its very clean, the staff to a magnificent job and its getting better funding than ever now, i think politians should stay out of it and the NHS should be applauded for their efforts
I wont have those Conservatives figures are manipulated, they dont mean anything, having a wasp in the hosptal, it happens, its not a ”pest” its just a wasp, swat it and move on its hardly a problem and as for pigeons, well of course there’s pigeons nesting around hospitals the damn things are everywhere due to the high levels of fast food litter dropped by yobs, its not right that the NHS is “talked down” by tories who dont care because they can afford privte health care, they did a much worse job when they were in power I remember queing up at A&E for 18 hours with a broken arm, a few mice in the kitchen is not the end of the world
its alarming that the conservatives have such a poor grasp of statistics and that the Star would report such slanderous accusations without investigating them in detail, when you look at their report most of the sitings were at one trust in nottingham which is the size of a small city in its own right, to suggest therefore that shrewsbury or telford hopsital have “PLAGUES” is not right, you need to drill down into these figures to see that they are often reporting ”flying ants” etc these are not a pest they are just an insect, they do no harm, they are perfectly asceptic and hygeinic creatures not exactly on par with rats, shame on the tories and shame on the star for the utter bunk about our wonderful public hospitals
i cant speak for shrewsbury which is a pretty old building but the telford hospital i visited recently and it must be only what ten years old, its clean as a whistle and a very good service standard, the nurses were great and I saw alot of cleaning going on, not just the caretaker but the actual nurses and manager even getting on and cleaning things, certainly no sign of mice, to scare the public like that for political points scoring is really poor form, i thought cameron didnt like punch and judy politics? This is the worst kind of political slime I have seen in a long time, vile, puts me off cameron for sure
It’s simple, no hassle political point scoring exercise, the Tories say something like this and it gives their friends at the Mail etc license to to publish screaming exaggerated headlines, which people who can’t be bothered to look into the truth behind the story lap it up and spread the idea that all hospitals are filthy hovels, not fit for the 3rd world. Statistics regarding this kind of thing have never existed before, so you have nothing to benchmark them against, it would interesting to compare the current situation to the 80s-90s when the Tories were busy running down the service.
the number of times pest control visit is not a good indicator of the level of pests, look, if a chap comes out, sees the site, looks at the droppings, then comes back the next day to lay the traps, but then forgets his poison, nips back, comes back with the poison, comes back in a week to clear the corpses, then does a follow up visit a month later just to check, that’s like 5 visits, and it doesnt mean its a more severe problem than just having one visit to investigate a pigeon nest or a wasp.
Dont beleive statistics, 94.2% are just made up on the spot
It interesting how so many people comment on the cleanliness of the hospitals but i question how many make frequent enough visits to comment.
I am unfortunately a frequent visit to both Telford and Shrewsbury hospitals so can comment. A&E in Telford always has visible dirt on the walls in the cubicles, as well as most other areas. If you can see dirt then think about what you cannot see!!! There does seem to be lower than satisfactory standards regarding hygiene which can only be blamed on poor management regardless of government or staff. Mops will always work regardless of Labour or Conservative leadership while staff will always need managing to ensure high levels of performance. Bad management is where all blame lies!
The Tories should be ashamed of producing such information - what a desperate lot they are!! The Health Service has never been better in all aspects and as for the Shropshire Star even considering producing such figures they should also be a little more unbiased!!!!!The NHS can do nothing right in the eyes of the Shropshire Star……trying visiting the hospitals and listening to the patients for a change - a total different picture.
I am ashamed as a previous Conservative voter of their pitiful attack on our health service, its irresponsible and their manipulation and misuse of the statistics borders on lies, I will be voting Lib Dem in future, this is a very sad day for the conservative party i once respected
i smell another tory plot, they cannot win with new policies so lets throw dirt at the government, eg rats,mice etc, theft of lap tops, loss of cd’s containing sensitive material, er need i go on? cameron,osborne etc a bunch of spivs
typical tories, slagging off the NHS, oh they did such a good job with it in the 80’s didnt they? I remember the cuts, the queues, the rationing of care, the privatisation of optitians and dentistry, i remember nurses on £12k per annum and pay freezes and staff shortages, junior doctors working 90 hour weeks, surgeons falling asleep through exhaustion, patients half starved with the 20p per day food budget in the hopsitals, i remember the dark old days of conservative run public services, they are all about cutting public services to save money, just look what their councils are doing with the bins nationally, even cutting that service in half, they are cheap skates, they have no right to talk about NHS standards
As a staff nurse, I am constantly saddened when politians get involved in the health service, they rarely help us, I spend hours cleaning, and of course there are still spots (mainly the nurses own kitchen!!) which could use a wipe down but I think cleanliness and patient safety is probably the main priority in Shropshire at present and when you work long hours to improve things, it really feels like being kicked in the teeth when politians criticise those efforts and try to imply there is dirt in hospitals just because some have had mosquitos in them!
Boring article and news.
Its a fact that you are never further than 50 yards away from a rat
So why would’nt hospitals be calling out pest controllers
Poor party politics by a Tory party which will say anything to get into power
this really is a terrible inditement of the desperate nature of political points scoring, of course a hospital uses pest control services from time to time, we all do. Yes I have had mice in my loft, and I am not skanky before you ask, I am perfectly clean, I just live in a rural cottage with very old beams and such, so I called the pest control man out from the council and he killed them, so what doesnt mean i’m not keeping my house clean
its only a pigeon, they’re not pests they’re quite cute really, never harm anyone
Problem with today’s world is we are TOO clean.
Our immune systems are asleep.
Never had any of this in older times as our bodies had the strength to fight it off. Everything is fixed with pills these days.
They even say bacteria is bad for you. “friendly bacteria” that’s like saying a pleasant thunderstorm. They are all bad, just some we require.
give a bit of work back to the body, it’s proven, we still have people around that have lived rough lives, eaten unhealthy diets, smoked, drank, and still made it to 110 years old.
Be interesting to see how many of out generation makes the 100 mark!
im an insensed by the sleezy tories flinging mud to hide their lack of policies on health care, shame on the tories, we know they despise the NHS and they would do their best to run it down again,
But cleanliness and insects should not be linked as this report erroneously attempts too, many creatures prefer clean surroundings, the old classic nits prefer clean hair etc, you can’t blame cleaning regimes for so called ”plagues” of wasps
Andrew Langsley of the Conservative Party doesnt know what he’s talking about, rat populations are the on the rise because his Party privatised the water companies, and so as a cost saver the likes of Severn Trent etc have stopped baiting the sewers to keep the population dowm, allied with milder winters due to global warming and a fad of putting bird feeders up every where and you have a recipe for rats, especially in a town like shrewsbury with a river runnning through it. To blame NHS cleaners for this is too simplistic
The Telford Hospital is clean on the inside but as you walk through look out he windows onto the court yards it has inchs of pidgeon dropping which is why the flies are attracted also dead pidgeons which is where the maggots come from!!
A useful survey by the Tories then - NO? I’d be more worried if the hospitals hadn’t been doing anything about it - the fact they have is reassuring.
Given the size of the NHS and the estate it covers I don’t think it’s too bad a record.
What amazes me is the uniform response from my fellow correspondants. Really refreshing to see that everyone has seen these figures for what they really are and how they’ve been used for a cheap shot at Labour.
I truly have no allegiance any more, but why can’t these children all play fair, then maybe they might concentrate on sorting out the mess we’re in currently…..
I love the NHS and am VERY grateful for it, long may it prosper.
Nonesense - our hospitals are better than ever thanks to record investment under Labour, by politicians that actually care about the poorest and most vulnerable in society who rely on this wonderful service being free at the point of use
But they say pets are very good for you, relaxing you, helping stress levels, etc.
Dyslexic Harry
tories have no right to comment on the NHS
thank goodness we wont be electing another tory government, yes with the tory press we will give labour a good kicking mid term but they will win crewe and nantwich and glasgow east at the general election. i remember the 2 and 3 year waits to see a specialist let alone hospitalisation. the nhs can never be safe with cameron and co