Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust (WWL) is proud to announce that the Trust has been named as the cleanest Acute Trust in the country for the second year running out of 123 Trusts.
Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) assessments provide motivation for improvement by providing a clear message, directly from patients, about how the environment or services of a Trust might be enhanced. For 2024, WWL has taken first place, nationally and first place within the North West for all Acute Trusts.
Over the last seven years, WWL has been consistently placed within the top ten per cent of the country, with 2024 being no exception, showing a consistent improvement in the environmental services we provide within our patient environment.
Mary Fleming, Chief Executive for WWL said: “To gain the top spot for the second year running as the cleanest Acute Trust in the country is such an incredible achievement. I am so proud of our teams and that our clinical environments across our WWL sites continue to be recognised as excellent spaces within which we provide treatment and care for our patients.
“A huge amount of daily effort goes into creating a welcoming and clean environment for our patients, and the scores from this assessment are certainly a true reflection of that hard work and dedication.”
The PLACE assessments took place across all Trust sites including the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, the Thomas Linacre Centre and six of the community premises owned by WWL.
The assessments involve local people, known as Patient Assessors, going into hospitals and community premises as part of a team to assess how the environment supports the provision of clinical care, assessing areas such as privacy and dignity, food, cleanliness and general building maintenance and, more recently, the extent to which the environment is able to support the care of those with dementia.
WWL’s cleanliness score and condition, appearance, and maintenance both scored the highest score at 100 per cent placing the Trust at the top in both categories, nationally.
WWL’s dementia score was 97.35 per cent, placing WWL seventh in the country with disability access scoring fourth place, nationally, at 99.15 per cent.
Overall, WWL’s food average score was 95.86 per cent. The food assessment is made up of two areas, Organisational Food (91.49) and Ward Food (97.66). Privacy and Dignity score was 91.26 per cent.
John Fairhurst, Director of Estates and Facilities for WWL, said: “Without doubt, to score 100 per cent in cleanliness, putting us at the top of all NHS Trusts in the country, is outstanding and is a real credit to the hard work and dedication of our outstanding Estates and Facilities teams. A huge congratulations to every single member of our teams who continue to show true commitment to maintaining such high standards across WWL.”