Care Homes: Cleaning Services
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment into the potential health benefits of encouraging care homes to have their laundry services fulfilled by an external commercial laundry provider.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
The Department has not made a specific assessment of the potential health benefits of encouraging care homes to have their laundry services fulfilled by an external commercial laundry provider.
Good laundry management is an important element of effective infection prevention and control (IPC) in residential care settings. The Department has published detailed guidance on IPC in Adult Social Care, which includes guidance on laundry management. The guidance regularly updated in line with the latest evidence to reduce the spread of infection, and is available at the following link:
Care providers are responsible for ensuring that all aspects of their operations, including laundry management, are managed safely and in line with this guidance, whether they choose to fulfil this in-house or by external contractors.
The Care Quality Commission, as the regulator of health and adult social care in England, assess whether providers are delivering safe, effective, and high-quality care, including through their infection prevention and control arrangements.
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