Tracey Sopp, our Managing Director, spent the morning with a Domestic Supervisor at Northgate Park in Morpeth to get a feel for what a day in their life is like. She joined Stephanie first thing when staff were signing in for the day and then helped her carry out a cleaning audit on a ward. NTW Solutions provides a range of services to Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW) including our domestic services which keep sites like Northgate Park clean and tidy.
Tracey welcomed the staff on shift and was responsible for the sign-in sheet as well as letting Domestics know which area they would be working on that day. She also handed out their daily work sheets that Domestics take onto their work areas which outlines all of the tasks that need to be carried out.
Many of the Domestic staff work in an area regularly and get to know the staff and patients in that area, as well as all of the tricky nooks and crannies to keep clean. Tracey heard how Domestic staff can become very proud and protective of their regular areas but of course, sometimes it is essential that people are flexible and cover different areas. For that reason all the Domestics have a good understanding and experience of all of the different wards, offices or communal areas on the site.
Once everybody was signed in for the day Tracey joined Stephanie on a cleaning audit on Tweed Ward. The audit was done together with the domestic with just a few areas which needed to be followed up. She saw how the audit was done at a particular point in time and how it can be impacted by the fact patients could have been heavily using an area in between it being cleaned and and the audit being carried out. The main purpose is to check standards and to give assurance to CNTW that we are maintaining the highest standards of cleaning.
Tracey saw first hand how integral the Domestic staff are on the ward as during the audit as every patient and every member of staff said hello to the domestic by name. She also heard how proud the Domestic is of their ward and the standards that they maintain.
Then Tracy joined the Stephanie on a different ward where they were just checking up on any follow up actions from a previous audit and thankfully everything was squeaky clean and all of the items have been followed up. Many of the audits and follow ups are done on an ipad and go straight onto the system to avoid the need for any paperwork.
The visit gave Tracey a great insight into the work of a Domestic Supervisor and of the domestic teams as well and how they work together to achieve consistently high standards.
