Most practice managers do not lose sleep over whether the surgery is clean. They lose sleep over whether they can prove it. When an inspector asks how you know the treatment room was cleaned to the right standard last Tuesday, a tidy room is not an answer. A record is.
This note sets out what the Care Quality Commission says it expects, where cleaning evidence usually breaks down, and what you should be able to ask your cleaning contractor for at any moment.
What the regulator says it expects
CQC’s guidance for general practice on infection prevention and control is clear on a few points. Practices should meet or exceed the Health and Social Care Act 2008 code of practice on the prevention and control of infections. There should be a named lead with overall responsibility for infection prevention and control. Cleaning contractors should work to a schedule of general cleaning, with frequencies for specific areas and for frequently touched items such as keyboards and door handles. That schedule should be checked regularly for compliance, and there should be an audit programme showing that problems were found and dealt with.
CQC also points practices to the National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness 2025, which replaced the 2021 specifications for cleanliness in NHS services. They give a structure for setting and measuring cleaning performance: areas grouped by functional risk, minimum cleaning frequencies, and audits that check both the result and the process.
The common thread is evidence. A schedule says what should happen. A record says it did. An audit says it was good enough, and what changed when it was not.
Where cleaning evidence usually breaks down
- The schedule lives in a drawer. It was agreed at the start of the contract and nobody has compared it with what actually happens since.
- Sign-off sheets are signed in advance, or not at all on the evenings the regular cleaner is off and cover is sent.
- High-touch points are assumed, not listed. Door handles, light switches, keyboards, chair arms and taps are where the specification matters most, and they are the first thing skipped when time is short.
- Nobody audits the contractor. The practice audits its own clinical areas, but the cleaning itself is taken on trust.
- Problems are fixed but not recorded. A missed room is cleaned the next day and forgotten, so the audit trail shows nothing was ever wrong, and nothing was ever learned.
Five things to ask your contractor for
Whoever cleans your practice, you should be able to request these and receive them within a working day:
- A written specification that lists every room, its risk category, the tasks and the frequency, including the high-touch points.
- Attendance records showing who attended, when they arrived and when they left, for every visit, including cover visits.
- Completed sign-off sheets or logs for each visit, matched to the specification rather than a generic tick list.
- Audit results from regular checks of the work, with the score, what failed and what was done about it.
- Staff vetting and insurance: DBS checks at the level your practice requires, training records, and current public and employers’ liability certificates.
If a contractor cannot produce these, the question to ask yourself is not whether they clean well. It is how you would show an inspector that they do.
How we evidence it at Phileos
We built our commercial service around that question. Every practice contract starts from a written specification agreed after a site survey, at a fixed monthly price. A supervisor attends the first three visits. Each visit is recorded and signed off against the specification, and faults reported within 24 hours are put right within 48, at no charge, and logged. Our team is DBS checked, and we carry £5 million public liability and £5 million employers’ liability cover, with certificates provided on request.
None of this is unusual in principle. What matters is that it is done every time, including on the evening the regular cleaner is off.
A short checklist for practice managers
- Can I see this week’s cleaning schedule, and does it match the rooms we actually use?
- Are high-touch points listed with their own frequency?
- Do I hold attendance and sign-off records for the last three months?
- When did we last audit the cleaning itself, and what changed as a result?
- Do I have current insurance certificates and vetting statements on file?
If any answer is “not sure”, that is where to start, whoever your contractor is.
Practice cleaning in Oxford, evidenced.
A free 15-minute site survey, then a written specification and a fixed monthly price.
Sources
- Care Quality Commission, GP mythbuster 99: Infection prevention and control in general practice.
- NHS England, National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness 2025.
This note is general guidance, not regulatory or legal advice. For your practice’s obligations, refer to CQC and your infection prevention and control lead.
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