HEALTH bosses have come clean. Standards of cleanliness at York Hospital are not good enough.

Director of nursing Mike Proctor has recognised "a general dissatisfaction with the standards of cleaning in hospitals".

That discontent has been reflected in stories and readers' letters we have published. While York Hospital has never descended into the grime seen elsewhere, it has suffered cleaning lapses, including one which saw a nurse branding wards "absolutely filthy".

We are right to expect that our hospitals are spotless. However professional the medical care, patients' confidence is knocked if they see dust and dirt around them.

Disquiet has turned to anxiety as burgeoning rates of MRSA were linked in the public mind to a failure of hospital hygiene. The problem became a hot election issue, with cleaner hospitals a key manifesto pledge by the Conservative Party. When York Hospital was stripped of one of its three stars partly because of poor cleanliness, something had to be done.

Bosses have decided to bring the cleaning service back in-house from the private sector. This is unlikely to have been the Conservatives' solution, but the move, and the extra £800,000 annual investment, will be welcomed by most patients and medical staff.

Cleaning will be in the direct control of hospital managers, and cleaners will enjoy better terms and conditions. That is just the fresh start York Hospital needed.

Updated: 11:21 Wednesday, June 01, 2005