Publish date: 7 March 2025
When she was shortlisted for Auditor of the Year at the MyCleaning awards it came as no surprise to those who know and admire her. It was Elaine’s pride in her work, attention to detail and outstanding performance throughout her long career as a domestic in operating theatres that led her to be handpicked by the senior management team to be trained as a cleaning auditor.
Elaine threw herself into the challenge of moving roles from a specialist theatre cleaner to the much broader remit of monitoring and improving the cleanliness standards of all hospital spaces.
Elaine embraced the change to using a tablet-based digital tool. Almost immediately, she began picking up on areas not covered by the existing system, got them added on and even created tailored versions of checklists in her own time to better support her rounds. Elaine has made such an impact at Blackpool Victoria Hospital that she’s even proved to be a role model and inspired other domestic cleaners to apply for the auditor career development pathway.
She said: “I am truly honored to receive this award. As Blackpool is my local hospital, I am committed to ensuring the highest standards of cleanliness.
“Being recognised among such strong competition is incredibly rewarding and motivates me to continue striving for excellence.”
Medirest, part of Compass Group UK & Ireland, operates across over 20 NHS partner healthcare Trusts including Blackpool Teaching Hospitals, employing several thousand employees to deliver services such as catering, cleaning, portering and security.
Jonathan Hayter, Contract Manager for Medirest, Compass Group, said: “Elaine’s built up a brilliant rapport with a lot of the clinical staff, which helps us massively in delivering our service. Elaine can go in and say, ‘We need to do this’, and they're quite happy because they’ve got trust in Elaine.”
Carl Mauback, Practice Development Nurse for Theatres and a colleague of Elaine, added: “Elaine has been a constant in theatres for many years and has always been a happy, hardworking and committed team member.
“She has an in-depth knowledge of all domestic and cleaning services and will always go the extra mile to help you out. As an auditor of services, she uses her years of experience to help guide others in pursuing high standards. I congratulate her and am proud to call her a colleague and friend."
The ceremony took place in London on 25 February.
