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If NHS hospitals wish to influence patients to choose them and, as the literature review suggests, cleanliness will be a key‐influencing factor in making that choice, it would seem important for hospitals to understand what factors lead people to decide whether a hospital is clean or dirty. The research aims to identify what the key factors are that influence patients' perceptions of cleanliness and to rank these factors in order of importance.

The project utilised a mixed methodology to collect the data. The hospital staff and people who had been recent patients took part in focus groups in order to gather their views. The current hospital in‐patients were surveyed through the use of a paper questionnaire.

The main themes that influence the perceptions of cleanliness emerging from the analysis can be summarised under three broad headings – appearance of the environment, physical cleanliness and staff behaviour. The findings suggest that this subject is much more complex than the production of a list. The appearance of the environment is a complex set of perceptions based on what individuals believe to be important, what they observe and what they expect. The research suggests that the appearance of the environment is the most important factor.

The paper starts to explore the factors that influence patient perception of cleanliness and provides practical information to NHS estates and facilities managers.

Agenda for Change is the biggest reform of staff pay in the UK National Health Service (NHS) since it began in 1948. As well as introducing a standardised pay structure; it also aims to improve recruitment, retention and staff morale. The aim of this study is to look in‐depth at the experiences and opinions of a range of estates and facilities staff surrounding Agenda for Change during the implementation period.

Focus groups were used as the primary method of data collection in an attempt to tap into the views and opinions of staff working at operational positions in a wide range of trusts.

One of the most important and common themes, which reoccurred throughout the focus groups, was the view that the Agenda for Change framework was designed around the needs of nursing staff. Therefore, the framework did not adequately cater for the needs of estates and facilities staff. Specific concerns related to this included; the role or contribution of estates and facilities staff during patient care was not fairly reflected; trade qualifications were not recognised, particularly in comparison to academic qualifications; members of the job matching panels did not have the appropriate knowledge to make decisions surrounding estates and facilities jobs; nurses were more likely to make progress through the bands than estates and facilities staff.

This paper would be of use to NHS estates and facilities managers who are currently implementing Agenda for Change or as a general case study on change management.

Despite rhetoric of added value, facilities management suffers a dearth of objectively researched, publicly available information concerning the impact of facilities on businesses at the level of market sectors or individual organisations. This paper aims to correct that situation for UK higher education institutions. A survey of undergraduates starting university in 2001 has confirmed, to high levels of significance, earlier research with the 2000 intake. For many institutions, facilities factors, where provided to a high standard, are perceived as having an important influence on students’ choice of institution. Year‐on‐year comparisons show strong agreement at the global level and, where data could be gathered, at the institutional level. Individual institutions show marked differences, significant at levels of confidence of over 95 per cent. A comparison of “reputational pull” and “facilities pull” is suggested as a means of differentiating the “brand” of different institutions.

This study aims to identify the dimensions of business student satisfaction in the Malaysian private higher educational environment and evaluate the influence that demographic factors have on satisfaction.

A questionnaire was developed and distributed to 1,200 undergraduate business students at four private higher educational (PHE) institutions in Malaysia. Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the underlying dimensions that drive student satisfaction. ANOVA and t-tests were conducted to evaluate the influence that demographic factors have on the results.

Factor analysis resulted in the adoption of a 12-factor solution from an original set of 53 satisfaction items. The results also indicated the influence of demographic factors on the level of business student satisfaction.

This study identified 12 factors or the underlying dimensions that drive business student satisfaction in the Malaysian PHE. The 12 factors are: professional comfortable environment; student assessments and learning experiences; classroom environment; lecture and tutorial facilitating goods; textbook and tuition fees; student support facilities; business procedures; relationship with teaching staff; knowledgeable and responsive faculty; staff helpfulness; feedback; and class sizes. Understanding these factors could help educational institutions to better plan their strategies and inform academics interested in studying student satisfaction.