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If you're wondering how our rather unique logo arrived at City & Kent - well, read on… From slightly unusual beginnings, south east London based City & Kent Cleaning, which is currently undergoing something of a transformation of its business began when Terry Pether (father of the present Managing Director, Ian), sold his share in a chain of successful greengrocery retailers to his partner Bill Wheble in the 1970's. He could have had had no idea that he would receive a rather peculiar request from one of his old greengrocery customers which would lead to today’s innovative and successful cleaning organizations. He was asked “Could you come in and do some window cleaning for us?"

This old customer was a London Teaching hospital, which happened to be a bit short staffed at the time. Gamely, Terry rolled up his sleeves and went in and did the cleaning himself, more for old times' sake than anything else. Strangely - for this truly was in the days of mops and buckets and hard work - he found he enjoyed the experience!

So much so, that his enthusiasm found its way to his former partner Bill who decided to joined him. Together, they named themselves after the City where they worked, and Kent where they’d spent many years sourcing their fruit and veg. They went on a number of specialist cleaning training courses and took on general cleaning work for other customers. Acquiring both cleaning qualifications as well as a good understanding of the business from every level stood the pair in good stead as they took on more and more staff to cope with the steadily growing workload. The reason it grew? Aside from the fact the two directors were prepared to get their hands dirty, their company ethos of professionalism, flexibility, reliability, care and service (learnt from their days in the retail trade!) also had much to say about it.

From the obvious 'cabbages' origins of City & Kent, the 'King's' comes into it as Guy's Teaching Hospital merged with King's College University of London and this generated opportunities for the company with City & Kent by this time cleaning lecture rooms, class rooms, staff quarters, laboratories, kitchens, catering and washroom facilities as well as communal areas.

Ian Pether joined the business in 1988 from a banking background although that cut no ice with his “Dad” who started his son off at the bottom – of a ladder no less, cleaning windows - a bit of cruel de ja vu!

Ian succeeded his father as M.D. in 1994 and has made the most of his humble but, thorough, beginnings and know-how in the business, working hard to justify Terry’s pride in the Company that had grown out of “an old greengrocers to hob-knob with King’s” who Ian is happy to report are still valued customers today. …….and now you know the story of our logo!

The new, specialised hospital and healthcare Deep Cleaning service iDCS launched by City & Kent Cleaning only in March, has already made its television debut on BBC’s Panorama.

Panorama is the long-running and highly regarded investigative current affairs programme that recently looked at c. difficile in Britain’s hospitals. In the programme, reporter Sally Magnusson revealed how sloppy hygiene, understaffing and overcrowded wards contributed to the spread of the superbug.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/programmes/panorama/default.stm

However, the programme also showed efforts being made by iDCS to Deep Clean hospitals, an operation in which the service not only draws upon over 30 years experience cleaning in the healthcare environment, but also utilises the latest validated Dry Steam Vapour decontamination technology that has only recently become available.

Dry Steam Vapour decontaminates a variety of hospital surfaces and equipment, and is especially suited to ward deep cleans, especially of beds and the surrounding curtains, cleaning and sanitising hospital equipment such as trolleys, fans and wheelchairs, clinical cleaning of operating theatres, isolation and anaesthetic rooms, as well as public area cleaning such as washrooms.

The programme showed hospital bed frames undergoing Dry Steam Vapour decontamination, as well as the immersion of patient equipment, including commodes, into ultrasonic cleaning vats.

In addition (and not shown in the programme) iDCS also provides air management of wards and isolation rooms, zone control matting, and microfibre – including in-house laundering of used cloths.

In June, those visiting the AHCP (Association of Healthcare Cleaning Professionals) conference in Harrogate, Yorkshire, will have an opportunity to learn more about this intensive approach to deep cleaning

i+DCS provided key supervisors and instructors to visit the renowned 2000 bed Sheffield NHS Teaching Hospital to train teams of in-house domestic and infection control staff in Intensive Deep Cleaning techniques and equipment. A full week of in depth training was completed culminating in the staff deep cleaning one of the hospitals’ wards to demonstrate the skills they learnt. Certificates of Excellence were presented to signify the training modules covered.

i+DCS was launched at Healthcare Ireland 23-24 April – the first major Exhibition and Seminar to be held in Dublin where visitors were able to see in action – ultrasonics, steam cleaning and microfiber. Live demonstrations involved hospital bed and equipment cleaning, and visitors were able to try out the processes for themselves.

CK Consumables has been appointed an Authorised Distributor of TASKI floor cleaning equipment and has already earned its spurs by securing several major orders. This busy division of the Company has recently set up its showroom at Lower Sydenham as a working environment where customers can see and try the TASKI range on a number of different floor surfaces, and take advantage of seeing all the Osprey Deep Clean Steam systems in one spot. The JONMASTER microfiber trolleys, as well as the Johnson Diversey Cleaning Chemical range, are also available for trial.

A new Contract Manager – Amanda Rynston – joined City & Kent Cleaning Services in early May to oversee operations on the Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells Hospital sites, Her wealth of cleaning experience and leadership is already making its mark and contributing to the Hospitals cleaner environment.