"Is Infection Control As Good As it Could Be? "

I spent some time (about ten days) on a ward at the Leeds General Infirmary recently. The ward was clean, and was cleaned frequently while I was there. The matresses, pillows and bed frames were cleaned between patients, and bedding was always changed if it was used in any way. There were plenty of hand-gel dispensers which were used reasonably well.

However, it seems to me that a piece of equipment which was heavily handled by each patient, and unavoidably so with contaminated and unwashed hands, I never saw cleaned. This was the television / telephone / headphone module. I know that in the outside world telephone keypads and keyboards are focuses of bacterial and viral contamination, and I am sure this will be no different in hospital.

I have not named the ward, as I think it unlikely that this practice is different from ward to ward.

Is this a question of adhering to a principle without thinking about the realities? When and by whom and how frequently are the TV modules cleaned? (not once in the ten days I was on my ward) Thinking about it, I might ask the same question about the bed control handsets, which again I don't think were cleaned.