New Wexham Park boss cracks down on hand washing

Mr Langley was made chair of Heathwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Trust by the health watchdog Monitor five weeks ago after it emerged it had serious financial and performance problems earlier this year.
At the meeting he said there were not enough posters at Wexham Park about hand washing and quizzed director of nursing Claire Culpin as to why a "bare below the elbow" policy was not in force there.
When she replied that a Corporate Image Policy had to be completed first and agreed with the unions he demanded: "Can we do it a bit quicker, because we talked about this at the last meeting. My suggestion is that having the right infection control policy is more important that image, should we not push it through quickly...... every time I ask that question I get that thrown back."
There have been three cases of MRSA in the last six months and an increased number of C Difficile cases in September, but this is within targets.
Mr Langley also wanted to know why the hospital had failed a target to do with safe storage of medicines because fridges were not being kept locked.
He said: "How long does it take to put locks on eight doors and fridges?.... why can't we just solve it in 24 hours if it's just a matter of fitting locks."
Chief executive Julie Burgess, in post for three months, said: "It's not acceptable ....... as of now any care leader who isn't making that a priority, we'll have to take appropriate action."
Mr Langley said he wanted to create a no-blame culture for reporting near-miss mistakes as happens at British Airways to prevent real incidents happening. Currently many near misses are not being reported.
The board of nine voting directors, most of them new, is drawing up turnaround plan which they aim to publish at the end of January.
The hospital was in deficit by £400,000 last month but is expected to meet its target of a deficit of £9.9 million this year.
Mr Langley is to appoint a new commercial director and deputy chief executive next week, although nobody has applied for the post of medical director. Most of the board members are new.