A HEALTH watchdog has called for officials to be more candid about hygiene levels in hospitals after they refused to release details following cleanliness checks.

A patient environment action team (PEAT) assessed standards in cleanliness at Wycombe and Amersham hospitals during a visit in September last year.

The visit was conducted to see if the trust met NHS national plan requirements for standards.

Since the visit, a £100,000 environmental improvement programme was set up at Wycombe and services were transferred to new buildings at Amersham. A further £100,000 is to be given to improvements in April.

South Bucks Community Health Council says during 2000 it received 39 complaints about South Bucks NHS Trust, most of which related to hygiene.

But at a public board meeting of the trust last week chief executive, Roy Darby, said a report of the findings was not in a publishable format and details would not be released until the PEAT conducted a second visit in February.

Ailsa Harrison, CHC spokesman, said: "It's the lack of openness that is worrying. If there is something in it and they come clean, people will be more accepting of it."

She added: "I wrote to the head of estates in Leeds and complained. He said 'you are absolutely right we know that and we are going to improve'.

"Cleanliness features in a large proportion of complaints. They should be open about what details are in the report. They should be able to tell everybody in a public meeting what is in it and should be able to say what decisions they are taking."

David Griffiths, the trust's deputy chief executive, told the meeting there was on-going dialogue with the cleaning service providers. He said: "We are certainly doing what we can to try and improve things. This is not going to improve many years of under-funding in the building."

Chief executive Mr Darby added: "We have been advised that the form of the reports we have got are not intended for publication."

A trust spokesman said the information will be made public following the next round of checks when the exercise is completed nationally.