Dumfries Infirmary intensive care unit cleaning 'poor'
Health inspectors have called for a string of improvements after finding poor cleaning practices in a hospital's intensive care unit (ICU).
It follows a visit in January in which they were not satisfied with the situation at Dumfries Infirmary.
The Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) found cleaning was "poor" and patient equipment was dirty.
NHS Dumfries and Galloway said it had moved "extremely quickly" to address the issues.
The HEI visited Dumfries Infirmary in the middle of January and returned a week later.
Chief Inspector Susan Brimelow said: "We have identified a significant number of high priority areas where Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary must make improvements within one month.
"During inspection on 15 and 16 January, we were not satisfied with infection prevention and control practices seen in the ICU.
"In particular, we found the standard of cleaning was poor and patient equipment which was not clean."
She said those concerns were "escalated" on the day of inspection and they returned to the hospital to follow up the issues raised.
"After revisiting the ICU, overall, we feel assured by the steps being taken by NHS Dumfries and Galloway to resolve these issues," she said.
"During this inspection we also saw patients with a known or suspected infection being cared for appropriately in isolation, and found the majority of staff were aware of their roles and responsibilities for the prevention and control of infection."
The inspection resulted in eight requirements and three recommendations to be addressed by NHS Dumfries and Galloway as a matter of priority.
The health board's chief executive, Jeff Ace, said: "The report does not identify harm to patients and the board has great confidence in the staff and in the standard of care provided in our ICU.
"The report does, however, identify environmental and other latent risks and we have moved extremely quickly to address these.
"I would like to express my thanks to all of the team who have worked very hard to address the HEI recommendations in such a short space of time."
He said most of the recommendations had already been addressed or were in the process of being tackled.
A health board statement said some of the problems were associated with the nature of the building and it was hoped plans to construct a new hospital would eliminate many of them.