News

The News of the World
Response from The Sunlight Service Group
18 February 2008

We are aware of the very serious allegations made in The News of the World at the weekend regarding our laundry standards. We strongly disagree with the article.

Our laundry procedures, personnel, equipment and processes are frequently inspected by trained, qualified personnel including NHS infection control nurses and microbiologists to ensure the efficacy of the microbial cleanliness of the finished products provided to the NHS.

We are fully confident our standards meet industry best practice. This is the case for all of our laundries across the UK including the Leicester facility.

A spokesman for University Hospitals Leicester said:

"We have a contract with Sunlight to deal with around 130,000 pieces of laundry every week. We have no current issues with the service they are providing.

Cleanliness is a vital part of the service we provide so we inspect the premises and monitor the procedures followed every quarter. Further regular, infection control visits are also made in addition to quality control checks on the linen that comes out to us.

There is regular microbiological testing of equipment, linen and staff hands. Equipment validation and temperature checks are also regularly undertaken and our experiences are that the dirty linen and clean linen areas of the laundry are always generally neat and tidy. Alcohol gel dispensers for hand washing are available between areas.

We are happy that the appropriate standards are being adhered to and will rely on our own regular inspections to satisfy ourselves of this rather than the News of the World. We have visited the site this morning and carried out further inspection, including the areas highlighted in the report and these are all up to standard."

Paul Sheehan of the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency is the Category Specialist responsible for the NHS National Framework Agreement for Laundry and Linen services and has recently visited the Sunlight Leicester processing facility. He can be contacted regarding any general enquiries from trust's relating to this National Framework Agreement.