Compass Medirest introduced its a+ Cleaning Initiative at 20 NHS hospitals throughout the UK. The initiative was launched following extensive research in the British NHS hospitals for which Medirest holds cleaning contracts. The a+ Cleaning Initiative is intended to improve cleanliness and hygiene standards by focusing on best practices and spreading these to all Medirest cleaned hospitals.

All areas of healthcare cleaning were examined in detail as part of the review leading to the launch. Green Valet's Clematis Stock Control system was already in use in a number of the hospitals under review, principally to deliver efficient stock control and distribution of cleaning supplies. A number of sites also used Clematis for operational planning and budgeting so Medirest had considerable experience of the system.

The review findings showed that hospitals where Clematis was in use were consistently among the best managed and cleanest locations. As a result, Clematis has been made a key component of the a+ Cleaning Intiative. It is now used in all hospitals in the Initiative and will, ultimately, be deployed in all Medirest cleaned hospitals.

More significantly, Medirest decided to extend the Clematis deployment to fully take advantage of Clematis' powerful performance optimisation and benchmarking features. This enables Medirest to benchmark the cleaning and hygiene standards and costs of the different a+ Cleaning Initiative hospitals to ensure the initiative remain on track to deliver the highest standards over the long term.

Compass Medirest was awarded the Health Innovation of the Year Award by the Patients Association for the a+ Cleaning Initiative. This is one of the most important and prestigious award in healthcare cleaning.

Claire Rayner, president of the Patients Association said "Companies such as Medirest play an important part in the clean hospital campaign and they have an innovative way of involving and motivating their staff which leads to greater commitment and training and can only help to raise standards of cleanliness."

According to Ian Moore, Medirest strategic development director "The a+ system is a team-led approach to raising cleaning standards and improving the patient environment in hospitals. It embraces best-practice cleaning, supply chain partnering, new cleaning technology and ongoing research and development to deliver cleaner hospitals."

GreenValet are proud to play a part in the a+ cleaning initiative.

About Compass Group

Compass Medirest is one of the largest providers of cleaning, catering and hotel services to the UK National Health Service. It is a part of Compass Group PLC, one of the largest Facilities Management organisations in the world.