Blenkharn Environmental has worked hard for many years, to identify and improve the safe handling and storage of clinical wastes, in the community, in hospitals, and by waste contractors.

Few others seem to bother, as this was always an issue far from the oversight of regulators and far too expensive to do properly. But in recent years, CQC has identified though its inspections many failures in clinical waste handling and storage in healthcare premises. This includes unsafe handling and storage of wastes, and poor hygiene standards that results in blood splashes on waste containers – all issues previously identified in our research and available from our Publications page.

These issues have become an easy target, perhaps rightly so as they are indicative of systemic hygiene failures and unsafe practises.

The latest to fall foul of these inspections is Lewisham Hospital. There will soon be many more as this provides an easy target for regulators. Many failures overlap with the requirements of the Environment Agency and HSE, both of whom have conscientiously sat on their hands for years and instead chosen the easy pickings of the clinical waste management companies.

Unfortunately, the consequences of those failures must now be overturned, and it will take time. It is some years since the second and most recent clinical waste survey. Perhaps it is time to do it all again? If we do, the results will appear here on the Clinical Waste Discussion Forum.

see also Clinical waste errors at West Middlesex Hospital

see also Clinical waste errors at West Middlesex Hospital

see also Plastic surgery clinic falls foul of regulator