“Although there has been some progress in the fight against Meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and C. difficile infections in England’s hospitals, the Department of Health is still in the dark over 80 per cent of healthcare-associated bloodstream infections.

“This means the NHS is effectively fighting hospital superbugs with one hand tied behind its back.  The Department also ‘cannot say’ why two out of five hospital trusts are only monitoring MRSA and C. difficile, which risks letting other superbugs run rampant.

“The Department of Health has been previously warned not to focus only on MRSA and C. difficile to the exclusion of other superbugs, but little appears to be changing.  The Department must stop dragging its feet and boost infection monitoring and control measures in order to keep less well-known but equally dangerous infections out of our hospitals.”

Mr Bacon was speaking as the Commons public accounts committee published its report on the reducing healthcare associated infection in England’s hospitals today.   Every year over 300,000 patients in England acquire a healthcare associated infection whilst in hospital costing the NHS more than £1 billion a year. These infections are caused by a variety of organisms and lead to a range of symptoms from minor discomfort to serious disability and even death.  In 2007, there were 9,000 deaths recorded with Meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infections as the underlying cause or a contributory factor.  The report finds that the Department’s approach to in reducing MRSA and C. difficile infections has been successful.

However, the Department has not achieved measurable reductions in other, avoidable, healthcare associated bloodstream infections.  The public accounts committee recommended in 2005 that the Department expand mandatory surveillance to other healthcare associated infections, but this latest report finds that this recommendation has not been implemented and there is still no robust comparable data on the extent and risks of at least 80 per cent of healthcare associated infections.  The report adds that, without surveillance information, the Department has no idea of the true scale of all healthcare associated infections and the risk they pose to patients.  The Department also could not explain why 20 per cent of trusts had carried out no additional surveillance on infections other than MRSA and C. difficile.

10 November 2009
 

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See also:
PAC REPORT: Reducing Healthcare Associated Infections

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