Key standards for environmental cleanliness
This resource sets out a reviewed and revised series of recommended standards and principles for all NHS Wales organisations to apply within their settings and to assist staff involved in environmental cleaning and decontamination. While the focus of the first COVID-19 addendum was ensuring acute and community hospital settings were safe, the revised standards are more transferrable, the standards are generally applicable to all healthcare and ancillary support service settings. The revised standards emphasise the need for risk assessment in determining the frequency and method of cleaning/decontamination as well as the importance of monitoring effectiveness and reporting non-compliance. The cleaning frequencies listed should be seen as minimums. In some situations organisations may consider if cleaning frequencies should be further increased based on patient occupancy, flow and known or suspected risk within individual clinical areas.