Hospital hygiene can come in all forms and titles, as can some of the medical instruments that are being used.

If contracted-out cleaning staff have a set job sheet to complete on their shift, they can only do that mainly due to time limitations. Its not their fault, but the administrator's who supply the instructions and the equipment to do the tasks required. Yet some of the staff doing these jobs, only seem to receive abuse from from the public and perhaps their line managers.

When I was in hospital after an operation, a rather large nurse knocked over a fan that was being used to 'cool me down'. The metal cover and the fan blades came adrift. The fan blade was covered in dust, but the nurse made no attempt to get the item cleaned, she simply assembled the item and left it at that. I was not even sure if she had made a later attempt at washing her hands.

With regards to instruments, there was an investigation program on television not all that long ago. Apparently there is only one hospital (based in the London area only) who as a 'quality control' technician, and he is the only one in the whole of the UK, who actually inspects new and old instruments like clamps, scissors, cutters etc for defects, which could lead to cleaning or usage problems. In this particular investigative program, it pointed out that instruments with Germany, France, UK printed on them as a point of manufacture, might have originally been produced and manufactured in Pakistan, possibly via a back yard mass produced process. You could even get Germany, France or UK printed on the items, if you so wanted. Germany printed on a instrument was regarding as the more superior product!.

Cutting costs also appears to cut standards?.

Over 40 years ago I worked in a meat products facory of a multinational. We had foot operated hand wash basins, changed our bacteriacide monthly to avoid bugs getting used to it, supervised hygine and hand washing in toilets with random petri dishes and a bugs lab, had bacteriacide hand gel, required 3 clear stool samples before retun to work after a tummy upset, and many other tests (sore throats tested for g staffs etc). All in all a far stricter regieme than I see in modern hospitals - staff wearing work clothes in street, doctors sometimes not wearing protecive clothing, hand operated taps, non auto door openings so you push on a plate where other hands have been. The point is I think our hospitals could learn a lot on hygeine from modern food factories.

"You're no more likely to be at risk of being contaminated by those substances in a hospital than you are in any other public building."

Exactly so.

Their hygiene is no better than anybody else's, and it should be.

"you have nothing on which to base such an allegation."

Yes I do - my own observations.

You, and others, say that such bins are not used for clinical waste in patient accessible areas, I say they are.

I cannot prove it, other than by taking a photograph and publishing it, just as you cannot prove I am a liar, or that I was incompetent in identifying such malpractices when it was still my job.