A hospital trust has achieved the target set by the Department of Health to complete a deep clean by the end of March.

Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust runs Barnet Hospital and serves one third of patients in Hertsmere.During the past year it has spent an additional £500,000 on increased levels of cleaning.The deep clean began in December and two full-time teams of five cleaners worked around the hospital.Paul Hawkins, who led the deep cleaning programme, said: "At Barnet this target meant deep cleaning a large hospital site in a limited amount of time. "We could not decant (empty) areas so the additional challenge was to do all this against a background of high bed occupancy."Despite facing this major challenge we achieved this through excellent partnership working between the trust and the hard work and dedication of all staff involved."A trust spokeswoman added: "Ward staff were extremely co-operative and appreciated that some disruption to ward routines was more than compensated by the end result."