Cleaning up: Understanding the new National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness 2025
Are you up-to-date with the changes? NHS England have recently released the new National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness 2025, which update the 2021 guidelines and introduce a number of important updates.
If you run facilities management in a healthcare setting in England, you’ll need to be aware of the changes to the guidelines and ensure your standards of cleanliness are in line and compliant.
The guidelines state, ‘Healthcare establishments can decide how their cleaning resources are best organised for their local environment and services, but meeting aspects of these standards is mandatory.’
Here are some of the key updates which will affect how you manage your cleaning service:
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Ambulance services Cleaning protocols will now apply to all patient transport services.
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A collaborative cleaning approach The new guidelines highlight the need for a collaborative approach to cleaning entire areas rather than individual elements being cleaned by separate teams.
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Star ratings on display A star system must be on display for staff, patients and the public to understand the cleanliness of an area.
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Additional score categories Two new risk rating scores have been added to the existing four to give departments more flexibility to adjust their ratings for different areas.
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An updated elements list The updated list provides flexibility for organisation to select which elements are applicable to their setting.
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Efficacy Audits: The audits will measure not only how clean an area is, but the process carried out to conduct a clean to understand the effectiveness of the service.
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Blending functional risk areas Blending of risk areas allows an organisation to maximise their resources.
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Linking cleaning frequencies to each element Cleaning schedules are matched to relevant specific needs of each area.
You can read the full guidelines here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/national-standards-of-healthcare-cleanliness-2025/
How Sitemark can help
If you’d like expert help to understand how the new guidelines apply to your organisation, get in touch with the team at Sitemark.
We’ve worked with over a quarter of all NHS Trusts in the UK and built a breadth of knowledge about facilities management best practice in a healthcare setting. We can review your current service, benchmark it using data collected from over 10,000 building reviews, and give you clear recommendations to make your service effective and compliant.
Call us on 01684 580680 or email ef********@*********co.uk to speak to the team. Visit www.sitemark.co.uk to learn more about what we do and read our case studies.
