Cockroach 'infestation' discovered at hospital

Royal Oldham Hospital

THOUSANDS of pests including cockroaches and rats have been found in NHS hospitals in each of the past five years as the cost of tackling them has spiralled, new figures show.

Data obtained by the Press Association under freedom of information laws shows there were nearly 5,000 pest control call-outs to hospitals in England in 2015/16 ­- equivalent to about 13 a day.

The areas where pests have been sighted included maternity wards, children's intensive care units and operating theatres.

The amount of money hospitals spent on treating pests reached nearly £1.1 million in the year to March 2016 and the overall figure is likely higher as only 87 of around 150 trusts responded to the request.

Some refused to say how much they had spent, citing private finance initiative (PFI) deals or that the information was "commercially sensitive".

And costs have soared compared with five years ago, based on an analysis of the like-for-like data from the 62 trusts that provided figures for both 2011/12 and 2015/16, which showed a rise of more than 26 per cent over the period from £646,857 to £815,855.

The majority of trusts outsourced their pest-control to private contractors such as Rentokil, ISS Facility Services and Medirest and paid for regular inspections as well as ad-hoc call-outs to pest sightings.

A total of 4,885 call-outs were made in the last year to March, while like-for-like figures from 57 trusts showed there were 3,880 call-outs in 2015/16, a rise of three per cent on 2011/12.

University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and Pennine Acute Hospitals (PAH) NHS Trust each recorded more than 300 incidents in 2015/16.

Across the four hospitals run by the Pennine Acute Hospitals trust in Greater Manchester, there were 302 pest sightings in the past year, marking a fall from 346 in 2011/12.

Reports between April 2015 and March 2016 included a cockroach "infestation" in the day surgery ward at the Royal Oldham Hospital (ROH), maggots found in the accident and emergency ward kitchen and a call logged from the ROH laundry which read: "Urgent ­- there are lots of cockroaches".

A spokesman for Pennine Acute said: "Recent mild winters have seen an increase in vermin across the country.

"We take patient, staff and visitor safety seriously and deploy preventative measures to pest control by employing a pest control contractor to visit each of our four hospitals every week, particularly in areas where facilities are susceptible to vermin.

"We have also introduced additional housekeeping measures, such as frequently emptying bins and cleaning across our sites."