From: Ian blenkharn@ianblenkharn.com
Category: News & information
Date: 16 Mrz 2008
Time: 08:51:21 +0100
Remote Name: 86.138.129.233
In the UK, arrangements for the collection of clinical wastes for patients treated in their own homes leaves much to be desired. Service standards are in some cases totally inadequate, and fail properly to support patients or their carers.
A requirement to leave wastes outside, on or at the edge of the footpath, for periods up to 24 hours before collection, is degrading and unsafe.
Many Local Authorities present information about clinical waste collections on their web sites, and the results of a recent audit of this information paints a sorry picture of service and quality standards. A research paper on this subject will soon appear in Public Health - keep an eye on the News and Publications pages of the main site for further information.
But now there is a news report that Merthyr Tydfil council’s environmental services department has proposed recharging the local NHS Trust for clinical waste collections from domestic premises. [more]
That is not really a problem. Some councils already do recharge for this service but perhaps this will open the floodgates.
It should not affect disposal companies, and MUST not affect patients. What worries me is that in considering recharge of service costs, and inevitably arguing the value of those services and the scale of that recharge with the Trusts, services will be pared still further and standards decline even more that their present, often sorry, state.