Riversway Nursing Home achieves one of the country’s first five-star rating in new NHS cleanliness scheme

Riversway Nursing Home, in St. Georges Bristol, could be one of the first residential settings in the country to achieve a five-star NHS Standard of Healthcare Cleanliness rating.

NHS Standard of Healthcare Cleanliness were first introduced in April 2021, for all NHS settings including care and nursing homes. They seek to drive improvements while being flexible enough to meet the different and complex requirements of all healthcare organisations.

The 2021 standards reflect modern methods of cleaning, infection prevention and control and cover important considerations for cleaning services during a pandemic. They emphasise transparency to assure patients, the public and staff that safe standards of cleanliness have been met. Although currently not mandated for all care settings, it is considered best practice and is anticipated to become a compulsory requirement for CQC registered settings later in the year.

Rosi Shepherd, Chief Nursing Officer at NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB, said:

“The ICB infection prevention management and control team have been working with colleagues and teams across the country to consider how the standards could be best adapted for residential care settings – balancing the need for high standards of cleanliness and infection prevention and control, while recognising that these settings are people’s homes.

“The Riversway team were outstanding in their commitment to meet these standards alongside continuing health and care system pressures, implementing cleanliness charters and cleaning specifications across the nursing home.”

Jan Wilkins, Director of Operations for Riversway Nursing Home, said:

“We are really pleased to have received this rating, which recognises the hard work and thorough measures our whole team has put in, led by Hamida, our Infection Prevention and Control lead. Thanks also goes to our residents and their families for their continued commitment and support to Riversway.

“Overall, this was a positive process which joined-up with our aim of having a clean and safe environment for all our residents and visitors.

“We have put a range of tried and tested measures in place to ensure we retain our five-star status at Riversway and intend to implement these standards in our sister homes over the coming months.”