I WRITE in response to your story “Too few staff to keep city hospital clean” (The Press, February 20).

Our cleaners are an essential part of the hospital team, and we recognised this over ten years ago when we brought cleaning in house at a time when many were outsourcing their cleaning services to private companies.

We were also the first Trust to introduce the Living Wage in 2014, which meant a pay increase for around 700 of our lowest paid staff, and we continue to pay above the national minimum wage.

Our decision to ask staff to pay for their own DBS check was not taken lightly, however at a time when the NHS is struggling with resources and we are quite rightly being asked to scrutinise all expenditure we could not continue to pay for this when we are the last NHS Trust in Yorkshire and the Humber to go down this route.

A certain level of vacancies is normal in any organisation, and some roles have higher turnover rates than others. We expect to recruit to our existing vacancies and look forward to welcoming new staff to our current team of domestics, who ensure that our hospitals are cleaned to the highest standards.

Patrick Crowley, Chief executive, York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust