Nurses, how much cleaning do you have to do?

[Toddlerteaplease]

Just wondering how munch general ward cleaning you have to do. (Not cleaning stuff after it's being used, or making bed spaces ready for new patients. Our lovely manager had decided we have extra cleaning jobs now. It seems a bit much, on top of having a patient workload.

That is revolting

Given you’ve not been doing any and presumably neither your colleagues…. I can’t imagine what that ward looks like in the evening

That's a ridiculous use of resources. Why pay a nurse to clean? A nurse is paid to look after patients, a domestic is paid to clean! The two aren't interchangeable. Tell your boss to do one.

I've never understood why the cleaners only work half days.

No I would not agree to any damp dusting but if equipment is cleaned after each use then the dust shouldn't settle and need extra cleaning in the afternoon. The locker bags, bins, food and used cups and glasses need changing. I would get infection control to speak with management and the domestic supervisor.

We clean. Our cleaners don't clean any clinical equipment, trolleys etc or spillages of body fluids. (Blood, vomit, so on...)
To me, it's all part of patient care. Infection control and maintaining a clean, safe environment is all our responsibility.

I've not worked on a ward in years (I'm a community nurse and have been since 2012) but general cleaning of spillages like tea knocked over on table, spilt dinner, commode cleaning after use, medical type spillages such as the dreaded spill of lactulose or oramorph I would expect to do. But dusting, household type cleaning..... erm...... isn't that the duty of housekeepers?

I am a domestic in a hospital. We have a list of our jobs, the housekeepers job and the HCAs jobs. I work 6 hours a day, 3 in a clinic first thing before it opens then 3 hours on the ward, the other cleaner with me is on the ward for 7 hours. We do floors, wardrobes, window sills, sluice, toilets, showers, kitchen, nurses station, windows, high dusting etc.

When I go in the place is full of clean stickers on thinks like the toilets, sluice etc which have been cleaned by the over night ward staff.

If I'm there we clean the bed spaces for a new patient apart from the bed.

The housekeeper does patient tables.

Damp dusting all equipment has an always been part of the daily nurse routine unfortunately - even in ITU we were and are expected to damp dust equipment during each shift.

@LimeChelle nothing worse than spilt lactulose or paraldahyde on a drug chart!

Yes, I’d clean equipment but I got the impression from the OP she meant the general ward environment, so beds, tables, shelves, windowsills, etc. genuinely don’t think I’ve ever cleaned those. Nor bathrooms unless there’s a bodily fluid issue.

but we have ward employed cleaners morning and afternoon (normally 2 at all times of the day). The hospital also employs a team/teams of travelling deep cleaners and they appear quite frequently.