GP Clinic Cleaning Checklist: What a Melbourne Practice Should Expect Every Visit

A GP clinic is not an office with a sharps bin. The rooms carry different risks, the products are different, and the thing a practice manager actually needs at accreditation time is not a clean floor but a record that the floor was cleaned, by whom, and when. This is the checklist we work to in the Melbourne practices we look after, written so you can hold any cleaner to it — including us.

The three rules that sit above the list

Touch points every visit, with hospital-grade product. Door handles, light switches, chair arms, reception counters, EFTPOS terminals, the height stick and the scales. Not wiped — disinfected, with a product that carries a TGA-listed hospital-grade claim and left wet for its stated contact time.

Colour-coded equipment by zone. A red cloth or mop head that has touched a toilet never enters a consulting room. Blue for clinical rooms, green for kitchens and staff areas, yellow for reception and waiting, red for toilets. If your cleaner turns up with one bucket, the system has already failed.

A record, per room, per visit. A tick on a checklist is worth more than a promise on an invoice. The RACGP standards ask a practice to have a cleaning schedule and to be able to show it was followed; a per-room checklist signed at the time is the cheapest way to meet that.

Every visit

Consulting and treatment rooms

Examination couch, pillow and step disinfected; paper roll replaced
Desk, keyboard, mouse, phone, chair arms and door handles disinfected
Hand basin, tap and soap dispenser cleaned; paper towel restocked
Clinical waste bin liner replaced without touching the contents; general waste emptied
Floor damp-mopped with a blue-zone mop; corners and under the couch included
Blood-pressure cuff, otoscope handle and any other patient-contact surface that is not single-use wiped down

Waiting room and reception

Chairs, arms and children's play surfaces disinfected
Counter, card reader, sign-in screen and pens disinfected
Magazines and brochures tidied; floor vacuumed or mopped
Water cooler nozzle and drip tray cleaned
Glass doors and the front-of-house glass spot-cleaned at hand height

Toilets

Pan, seat, flush button and cistern top disinfected
Basin, tap, mirror and dispensers cleaned and restocked
Floor mopped last, with the red-zone mop, working towards the door
Sanitary bin checked; supplier collection noted if due

Staff room and kitchen

Benches, sink, tap, fridge handle and microwave disinfected
Bins emptied; dishwasher run if left ready
Floor mopped with the green-zone mop

Weekly rotation

Skirting boards, vents and high-touch walls behind chairs
Under and behind reception furniture
Blinds and window sills in clinical rooms
Spot-clean walls and doors at hand height throughout
Internal glass beyond hand height

Monthly and quarterly

Carpet extraction in waiting areas (quarterly, or monthly in winter for high-traffic practices)
Hard-floor machine scrub and re-seal where fitted
Light fittings and ceiling vents
Chair upholstery deep clean

What to ask for at accreditation time

An accreditation surveyor will not ask whether the clinic looks clean. They will ask to see the cleaning schedule, the products used and evidence the schedule was followed. The three things worth insisting your cleaner provides:

A written scope per room that matches this checklist, agreed at the start and reviewed when the practice changes.
Attendance records — who was on site, when they arrived, when they left. We sign every visit in and out inside a geofence around the practice, with a photo, so the record is not something a cleaner fills in from memory on Friday.
Inspection results. A supervisor should walk the practice on a regular cycle and score it. Ours do it every three weeks and the score, with photos, is available to the practice.

After hours, and who holds the keys

Almost every Melbourne practice we clean is done after the last patient leaves. That means the cleaner holds a key or a code, and the practice needs to know exactly who. Ask for a written access procedure that names the key holder, the alarm arrangement and what happens if the cleaner is sick. A clinic key that "one of the team" holds is a risk you are carrying without knowing it.

If you run a practice anywhere from Sunshine to Mount Waverley and want the checklist applied properly, our medical cleaning Melbourne page explains how we work, and the suburb pages for Camberwell and Preston say whether we are already cleaning nearby.