The number of rats, mice and cockroaches found at east Kent hospitals has been revealed.

It was reported last week that the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Trust (EKHUT) came 10th in the country for calling in pest controllers.

The trust, which manages hospitals in Canterbury, Ashford, Thanet, Folkestone and Dover, called in experts 416 times, between January 2006 and April 2008 , to remove vermin and insects.

Ashford's William Harvey hospital had the most visits during the time frame, with pest controllers called in 132 times.

The callouts were for:-

In Canterbury, Kent and Canterbury Hospital had 106 visits.

They were broken down as follows:-

Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital in Thanet had 86 visits. The calls were for:-

Buckland Hospital in Dover had 58 visits, broken down as:-

Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone had the least number of visits with 16: -

An EKHUT spokesperson said a lot of the visits were return visits and were going down.

Howard Jones EKHUT’s director of facilities and estates said: “These figures are misleading and simplistic. We have five hospitals in East Kent and because of this our figures could look worse than hospital trusts which operate only one hospital.

“It seems that one insect or mouse is now defined as an infestation – a complete misunderstanding of the definition of the word which speaks of ‘large amounts’ of whatever the problem is.

“On average across our five hospitals which are spread over a 40 mile distance we call in pest control only once every week and a half per hospital.

“Reported incidents include mice, cockroaches, dead birds, bird droppings, wasps and other flying insects and ants.

“We encourage our staff to report any problems as soon as they discover them because our priority is patient welfare and care, and we see this as an important part of the prevention work that we do.”

The statistics were revealed in a Freedom of Information request by the Conservative party

See last week's story here>>>