A HOSPITAL where sterilisation procedures were stepped up after a scare over dirty surgical instruments has been given £1.9m to modernise cleaning facilities.

In May, bosses at Darlington Memorial Hospital ordered special measures to be taken after it was revealed that dried blood and flesh had been found on surgical instruments.

The problem came to light after a local GP wrote to Bishop Auckland MP Derek Foster complaining that a surgeon at the South Durham trust had refused to operate on four occasions because of dirty instruments.

At the time, the trust announced that the problem had been solved by spraying instruments with a solution which prevents blood drying.

Now South Durham Health Care NHS Trust has been allocated £1.9m to modernise the sterilisation unit which serves Darlington Memorial Hospital and Bishop Auckland General Hospital.

The Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust, which includes the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle General Hospital and the Freeman Hospital, has been allocated £1.5m to improve its sterilisation facilities.

In South Durham, a total of £1.4m will be spent on a range of new facilities, including four new washer-disinfectors, which have a tunnel washer that continually cleans instruments passing through on a conveyor belt.

Four new steam sterilisers, known as autoclaves, will also be purchased. Once the new unit is ready, in about two years, it will be capable of cleaning 3m instruments a year, a million more than the current capacity.

Kevin Oxley, estates manager at the South Durham trust, said: "It is a total upgrade which will mean we will have facilities equivalent to those at the new hospital at North Durham. Cleaning standards will be similar but the modern equipment means we can trace every piece of equipment through the system and back to individual surgeons and patients."

The trust was given more money than it asked for to allow greater centralisation of sterilising facilities in the South Durham area.

It will mean that small sterilising units in the area, serving GPs, chiropodists and dentists, will be closed.

The trust has to match the £500,000 Department of Health allocation for new instruments.

Mr Oxley said there had been no further reports of dirty instruments getting through the sterilising process and into operating theatres.