Reporters from the News of the World went undercover to get jobs at Sunlight's Groby Road laundry in Leicester, incorrectly named Gorby Street in the report. The story, which appeared on Sunday 17 February under the byline of reporter Mazher Mahmood, was headlined “NHS Dirty Secrets Exposed: squalid laundry that washes NHS linen.”
On Monday February 18, the Sunlight Service Group's HR director Martin Roberts issued the following statement: “We are aware of the very serious allegations made in The News of the World at the weekend regarding our laundry standards. We strongly disagree with the article.
“Our laundry procedures, personnel, equipment and processes are frequently inspected by trained, qualified personnel including NHS infection control nurses and microbiologists to ensure the efficacy of the microbial cleanliness of the finished products provided to the NHS.
“We are fully confident our standards meet industry best practice. This is the case for all of our laundries across the UK including the Leicester facility.”
Simon Buss for the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust said: “We have a contract with Sunlight to deal with around 130,000 pieces of laundry every week. We have no current issues with the service they are providing.
“Cleanliness is a vital part of the service we provide so we inspect the premises and monitor the procedures followed every quarter. Further regular infection control visits are also made in addition to quality control checks on the linen that comes out to us.
“There is regular microbiological testing of equipment, linen and staff hands. Equipment validation and temperature checks are also regularly undertaken and our experiences are that the dirty linen and clean linen areas of the laundry are always generally neat and tidy. Alcohol gel dispensers for handwashing are available between areas.
"We visited the site on February 18 and carried out further inspection, including the areas highlighted in the report and these are all up to standard.”
