Data obtained by the Press Association under freedom of information laws shows NHS trusts made 4,885 pest-control callouts last year \u2013 equivalent to around 13 a day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
The areas where pests have been found included maternity wards, children\u2019s intensive care units and operating theaters. One call log from the laundry at Royal Oldham Hospital in 2015\/16 read: \u201cUrgent \u2013 there are lots of cockroaches.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The cost of removing pests reached \u00a31.1 million in the year to March 2016. The overall figure is likely to be much higher, as under half of hospital trusts in the UK replied to requests for information.<\/p>\n Some refused to say how much they had spent, citing private finance initiative (PFI) deals or that the information was \u201ccommercially sensitive.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Costs spiraled compared with five years ago, based on an analysis of like-for-like data from the 52 trusts provided figures for both 2011-12 and 2015-16.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a rise of more than 26 percent over the period. Read more<\/p>\n Spending at London\u2019s Guy\u2019s and St Thomas\u2019 NHS Trust almost doubled between 2011\/12 and 2015\/16, from \u00a367,425 to \u00a3132,210 \u2013 by far the highest of the trusts which responded.<\/p>\n \u201cWe take all pest control matters very seriously and deal with them swiftly,\u201d<\/em> a spokesman from the trust said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a large provider of health services in London, the importance of high standards of cleanliness means a robust approach to incidents and prevention is absolutely essential.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The majority of trusts outsource their pest control to private contractors such as Rentokil, ISS Facility Services and Medirest, and paid for regular inspections as well as ad hoc callouts for individual pest sightings.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHospitals must have an effective pest control policy and the use of experts is good practice to ensure that buildings are kept clean and safe for patients,\u201d<\/em> a Department of Health spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hospitals in the UK are infested with vermin including cockroaches and rats, sending National Health Service (NHS) pest-control costs soaring past \u00a31 million (US$1.23 million) a year. Data obtained by the Press Association under freedom of information laws shows NHS trusts made 4,885 pest-control callouts last year \u2013 equivalent to around 13 a day.\u00a0 Read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":287892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-287891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n ![\"\u00a9](\"https:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/2016.03\/thumbnail\/56e7d5c0c46188f4328b45cb.jpg\")
\n <\/a>\n<\/div>\n
Health bosses blame the weather, arguing that \u201crecent mild winters have seen an increase in vermin across the country.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\n ![\"\u00a9](\"https:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/2016.12\/thumbnail\/585278ffc36188e27a8b45d0.jpg\")
\n <\/a>\n<\/div>\n