Doctors Surgery Cleaning - great advice to ensure full CQC compliance with 4 main aims

Doctors Surgery Cleaning

Medical practices such as doctors surgeries in England fall under the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC’s) ongoing compliance monitoring system. Part of this compliance monitoring process relates to cleanliness and infection control within your practice.

A waiting room full of potentially ill people obviously carries a high risk area for bacteria and viruses to spread. This is without even considering the consultation rooms where patients come and go throughout the day. As a result, it’s clear that a professional and reliable cleaning service is essential to keep your doctors surgery hygienic and safe. 

This is essential to ensure that staff, patients and other visitors are being kept as safe as possible when visiting.

Doctors surgery cleaning
Green Fox doctors surgery cleaning

Click here to learn more about the full CQC requirement with regard to doctors surgery cleaning.

"Yet again the staff at Green Fox Cleaning have immediately responded to our request for help with a situation and have dealt with it promptly and efficiently. We are very grateful and very pleased that we made the switch to you."

Doctors Surgery Practice Manager

The CQC regulations around cleaning have four main aims:

Doctors Surgery Cleaning requires skill and knowlege to be done correctly and well, every time.

  • To provide a good framework that will allow doctors surgery cleaning services to be arranged effectively and efficiently.
  • To make sure that the appropriate documentation is being provided that proves how medical processes are being managed, to include cleaning schedules, risk assessments, method statement and COSHH data sheets.
  • To emphasise that doctors surgery cleaning is a shared responsibility that does not just involve the cleaning team. It is a process that must be completed on an ongoing basis throughout the day.
  • To assist providers in making sure that risks for infection are reduced significantly during the delivery of services
Doctors surgery cleaning

How to ensure professional doctors surgery cleaning is completed at your practice

The easiest way to ensure your practice is cleaned to the highest standard every day is to engage the services of a cleaning company experienced in the healthcare cleaning cleaning.

There are many benefits to outsourcing your doctors surgery cleaning to a commercial cleaning company - click here to learn more about the benefits of outsourcing your cleaning.

If you decide to keep your doctors surgert cleaning in-house, it is essential that you have a detailed cleaning schedule. This will ensure that those responsible for the cleaning of the practice know exactly what is expected of them, and makes the expectations very clear from the outset.

The schedule should detail all rooms and areas of your surgery, and every single cleaning task to be completed in that area. The schedule should also detail the frequency of the cleaning - e.g sanitise all desks daily, or high dust weekly, for example.

In the healthcare cleaning sector, nothing short of perfection will do. Daily sanitisation throughout the practice is essential to keep staff and visitor safe, with many visiting when their immune system is already low.

Selection of the correct cleaning products and equipment is key, and cleaning should be completed in a thorough and methodical way, following the cleaning specification.

Areas that could easily be missed such as light switches, door handles and other high touch points require extra attention.

Floors should be cleaned thoroughly using a suitable disinfectant, desks and chairs cleaned daily, and bins emptied daily also. When you think of all the tasks that require cleaning and different frequencies, a cleaning schedule for your practice is likely to run over many pages if done correctly.

Patient and staff toilets require extra attention to ensure full sanitisation and safety for all visitors when undertaking surgery cleaning.

The need for colour coding when cleaning a doctors surgery

Every part of cleaning a doctors surgery should be consider the measures needed to minimise any risk of cross contamination. Click here to learn what cross contamination is, and how to avoid it when cleaning.

Colour coding is in its most simple form, the use of different coloured cloths, mops and buckets to prevent the spreading of germs. Industry standard colours are common, and normally as follows:

  • red - for bathrooms
  • green - for kitchens
  • blue - for general low risk areas such as offices and waiting rooms
  • yellow – for clinical and decontamination areas.

Colour coding is essential to keep all areas of your practice as safe as possible. If you have a cleaning company currently, have a look in your cleaning cupboard. Are all four coloured options present, or are they cutting corners and pinching the pennies with just a couple of colours? If this is the case, it is certainly time to look for a new cleaning contractor.

Click here to learn ten great questions to ask when deciding on a new cleaning company for your doctors surgery cleaning - spending time making the right choice next time will save you a lot of time and aggravation in the long term!

"I must say to you that I have been so impressed with the service you have offered since the very first day you came to see us – just thought I’d let you know that!"

Practice manager, Doctors Surgery, Emsworth

Infection control

Good infection prevention (including cleanliness) in doctors surgery cleaning as advise by the CQC is essential to ensure that people who use health and social care services receive safe and effective care. Effective prevention and control of infection must be part of everyday practice and be applied consistently by everyone.

Doctors Surgery Cleaning

Full guidance from the CQC around infection control in general practices can be found by clicking here. Two examples of the guidance given include the need for clinical rooms to avoid the use of carpet, and bins in all clinical areas should have a foot pedal operation.

At Green Fox Cleaning, infection control is our top priority and our team have many years of experience in knowing exactly how a doctors surgery should be cleaned to ensure high levels of cleanliness throughout the building, day after day, clean after clean.

Out of hours audits and inspections ensure that a high standard of cleanliness is consistently maintained.

In summary

We hope you have found this article on doctors surgery cleaning and the high expectations of surgery cleaning useful. Selecting a good cleaning company will save you time and money in the long run!

Many GP surgeries require an out of hours cleaning service. At Green Fox Cleaning we operate 24/7 and we can be flexible and clean at a time that suits you, the staff and your patients.

At Green Fox Cleaning, our exceptional cleaning standards from our highly trained cleaning operatives ensure the surgery is thoroughly cleaned and we also offer carpet cleaning and window cleaning to be able to provide a full and extensive service as needed.

Our cleaning operatives are local to your premises, dedicated to your venue to ensure personal pride is taken, and trained by our in-house British Institute of Cleaning Science Team.

To find out more about our work in the healthcare setting and how we can help improve the appearance of your medical premises, click here to learn more.

Why should you hire a professional cleaning company?
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You can learn more about the history of general practice from Wikipedia by clicking here.