A third of all hospitals failed basic hygiene checks on
   wards when examined as part of a government survey
   into NHS cleanliness, it was reported today. 

   In a survey of standards in 700 hospital buildings, 250
   were given the lowest grade, according to reports. 

   An National Audit Office report last year found that
   about 5,000 patients die each year from infections
   caught in hospital and a further 10,000 suffer illnesses
   caught on the wards, costing the NHS around £1 billion
   a year. 

   Nigel Edwards, director of policy at the NHS
   Confederation, said that he accepted the report's
   findings and blamed the hygiene problem on a
   cost-cutting culture imposed on the NHS by politicians
   over the past two decades.

   By Andrea Babbington
   6 January 2001
   "The Independent" - English broadsheet. 

   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

   "Perceptions" note

   Only a generation ago British hospitals were spotlessly clean,
   and therefore safe.
   
   Their cleanliness was the responsiblity of working-class women,
   the Nurses, Ward-Sisters and Matrons.

   However, during the greedy '80s politicians took the opportunity
   to hand over these responsibilities to their friends - get rich 
   quick "professional class" males who said they could do everything
   much better - and at a great profit - by using low-paid and 
   downtrodden contract workers.

   So, like the railways of Britain, the hospitals were handed over 
   to incompetent upper-class groups with no values or principles.

   Result - now in 2001 the railways are in a state of chaos; the 
   hospitals are dirty and unsafe.

   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

   reference file for 
   http://www.perceptions.couk.com/thedome.html

   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

              FURTHER REFERENCES

  GO - "search perceptions" - in SEARCH-ENGINE


file-ID www.perceptions.couk.com/dirt.txt