HEALTH bosses were today defending the reputation of Worcestershire Royal Hospital after it came under attack in a television programme.

John Rostill, chief executive of the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, dismissed the BBC1 show Kenyon Confronts as "theatre television" after it was screened last night.

He says the hospital has high standards of hygiene, is devoted to the safety of its patients and staff.

The programme saw undercover nurses and reporters exposing bags of discarded clinical waste left in corridors, a failure to clean up excrement, and medication and dirty dressings left under beds.

It was based on three hospitals built and run under the Government's Private Finance Initiative - Worcestershire Royal, Cumbria Infirmary and Darent Valley in Dartford.

But Mr Rostill said: "I understood this to be about the advantages and disadvantages of PFI hospitals, yet the makers refused to interview me to give a balanced and sensible view."

He defended the hospital's cleanliness, saying: "If you walk around the hospital you don't get an impression that it's dirty.

"They were saying clinical waste bags were being left in the corridors but I have walked those corridors and have personally seen no evidence of that.

"We are regularly inspected and have never been picked up on poor hygiene, but I am happy to look into this and check it is all satisfactory."

On the show, undercover volunteer nurse Karen Mitchell revealed how one overworked nurse was taking blood without wearing gloves as she wanted to get through as many patients as possible.

But Mr Rostill said she was not taking blood but carrying out a procedure called cannulation, where a nurse inserts a tube into a vein.

Preferred

"There was nothing unsafe about that procedure and it's a preferred choice for many staff to not wear gloves when doing it," he said. "There is no accuracy in any allegation that we are putting nurses' health at risk."

The £112m Royal, opened 18 months ago, was criticised in the programme by University Professor for Architecture Malcolm Hollis as being a "muddled" design with some corridors being too narrow to get a bed down with two people wither side.

Mr Rostill said: "I haven't come across any major design flaws. There's always things with hindsight you think we could have done differently, but the design was approved."

A spokesman for the BBC said details of the allegations were given to the hospital well in advance and the key points of their lengthy response were aired.