Does anyone have any experience of automatic air fresheners? These are the devices found in toilets and increasingly around hospitals which automatically dose the air with a jet of air freshener at regular time periods.
Apparently the NHS are pushing this as a way for hospitals to be perceived as cleaner, i.e. not smelling of hospital. Our trust has recently spent quite a bit of money on them. I first found out when I saw a couple of patients from the same area with pre-existing asthma whose symptoms suddenly got a lot worse. These settled completely within a day or two of the air fresheners being removed. Has anybody else had this problem?
I am still awaiting data sheets on these products but am told we have two different sorts. One which works as described above and the other which produces ozone and "recreates the atmosphere experienced after a thunderstorm". Call me old fashioned if you like but is this a good idea??
I am told by my Facilities people that they are widely used all across the NHS and therefore there can't be a problem, my experience so far indicates the opposite.

Philip Atkinson
Consultant OHP NHS