Hospital laundry mix-ups

A seat cushion, books, electrical cables and toilet seats are among the most bizarre items to turn up in laundry at Courier Country hospitals, we can reveal.

The inventory of rogue items sent for washing also includes teddy bears, spectacles and even a shoe.

A SEAT cushion, books, electrical cables and toilet seats are among the most bizarre items to turn up in laundry at Courier Country hospitals, we can reveal.

The inventory of rogue items sent for washing also includes teddy bears, spectacles and even a shoe.

A number of more conventional items of hospital paraphernalia were also revealed to have mistakenly been sent to the hospital laundry facilities following a request under Freedom of Information laws.

Almost half of the 707 items which were mistakenly bundled up with dirty linen over the past year were scissors, with 316 pairs making a trip to the laundry.

Additionally a total of 35 hypodermic needles were discovered, though it is unclear whether or not these were used.

The rogue items came from a number of hospitals across the NHS Tayside area.

NHS Fife refused an identical request, claiming that procedures resulted in so few items being mixed in with sheets that they did not keep a record of them.

Two toilet seat lids were sent to laundry at Ninewells Hospital, while a pair of metal poles was sent from the psychiatric unit at Liff.

At Perth Royal Infirmary 18 urine bags were accidentally sent for washing, compared with 58 at Ninewells. It was not recorded whether they were full or empty.

Stracathro Hospital was responsible for one of the three books which were mixed in with sheets.

Three remote controls were sent from both Ninewells and the RoyalVictoria Hospital. The area’s largest hospital, Ninewells, had a total of 354 items sent to laundry, while Perth Royal Infirmary came in at second place with 132. More than 20 items were listed as being of unknown origin.

A spokeswoman for NHS Tayside said rogue items were rare when measured against the amount of washing the service does on a weekly basis.

She said: “Our priority is to ensure the safety of all our employees and we have strict guidelines and policies in place to try to prevent such incidents.

“Any breach of infection control precautions which may put any member of staff at risk is taken very seriously.

“We need to ensure that no member of NHS Tayside staff is put at any unnecessary risk in the course of their duties and, therefore, we have already taken steps to reinforce the need for all staff to be acutely aware of the relevant policies and guidelines when sending items to the laundry.

“In accordance with NHS Tayside Infection Control Policy and Procedures, all Tayside Linen Services staff receive comprehensive training and are provided with appropriate personal protective equipment in order to mitigate the risk of injury from inappropriate items coming through the laundry system.

“These incidents are unusual when you consider we launder 150,000 items per week.”

A spokeswoman for NHS Fife admitted they had had problems in the past but had put in new procedures to limit the problem.

She added that they had given staff training to raise awareness of the problem and now used a tagging system to ensure laundry was traceable.

Among items sent to hospital laundries have been teddies and toilet seats.