London: Hospitals fail to meet superbug targets

London hospitals are struggling to cope with deadly superbugs, despite a major hygiene drive in the NHS - reports the Evening Standard.

Figures released today by the Health Protection Agency show rising rates of the potentially fatal stomach bug Clostridium Difficile.

Almost 1,680 people contracted the bug in the first three months of this year - a rise of 14% on the previous three months.

Additionally, around 1,200 people contracted MRSA - 25% more than the target level.

The figures come only days after chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson attacked hospitals for an "unacceptable level of hygiene".

Barnet and Chase Farm NHS Hospitals Trust was issued with an improvement notice last month for serious breaches of the rules, including basic measures such as not having alcohol hand-rubs.

The highest numbers of C.Difficile cases were at Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals (Theresa Villiers MP and Joan Ryan MP), with 188 in the three months from January to March.

There were 132 cases at Whipps Cross (Harry Cohen MP), 123 cases at St George's Healthcare NHS Trust (Sadiq Kahn MP & Martin Linton MP) and 118 at Kingston Hospital (Ed Davey MP).

Other hospitals where cases of MRSA are on the increase include Newham University Hospital (Lyn Brown MP), Hillingdon Hospital (John Randall MP), and West Middlesex University Hospital (Ann Keen MP).

Many other London hospitals, while reducing the number of cases over previous years, still suffer a problem. And MPs would surely agree that even one superbug case is one too many.

So are these MPs going to vote to waste billions of pounds extra on the audit-failing EU - completely without justification - while their constituency hospital needs further investment to improve hygiene?

People are dying due to this hygiene problem. Can't the EU manage to get by on the £3.5bn a year (net) we already hand over every year? That's surely more than our fair share.

Hospital bugs 'remain a problem'

The number of cases of the superbug MRSA is falling in England, but the potentially more dangerous Clostridium difficile is thriving, according to the BBC.

A review by the Health Protection Agency showed hospital MRSA cases had fallen by 10% in the first three months of 2007 compared with a year ago.

But rates for C. difficile, which mainly strikes the elderly, rose by 2%.

Some NHS trusts complained that targets - both clinical and financial - were hindering the fight against infection.

In a separate survey carried out by the Healthcare Commission - an NHS watchdog - some 45% of the 155 trusts said time targets for treating patients in A&E were getting in the way of infection control measures.

Pressure to move patients to any available bed rather than the most appropriate bed or an isolation ward was one reason cited for the difficulties.

A further 36% of trusts said they were having problems combining investment in cleaning with financial targets, while 88% said their limited IT infrastructure "was restricting their ability to draw important lessons from incidents of infection".

The survey was carried out in May 2006, and the watchdog noted that a number of practices - particularly regarding individual staff objectives for bringing down infection - had changed.

There were 15,592 reported cases of C. difficile in patients aged 65 and over in
England in the first quarter of 2007. This represents a 2% rise when compared with the same period last year, but is 22% higher than the previous quarter.

C. difficile usually affects the elderly, and can prove fatal if antibiotic treatment fails to kill all the spores in the gut, and they take hold again before the patient's own gut bacteria have had chance to mount a resistance.

It is also very difficult to eradicate from the ward environment, which means it is easy for other patients to become infected.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said the government had "spectacularly failed" to halt C. difficile.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley called the figures "the tip of the iceberg, because they do not include the number of infections in people aged under 65".

Deadly NHS bug 'underestimated'

The BBC is reporting that thousands of cases of the hospital bug Clostridium difficile have remained hidden due to a requirement to only report cases affecting people over 65 years old.

A government suveillance scheme has required hospitals to submit numbers of cases of C difficile in people over 65 since 2004. But only since April this year must cases among all patients be included in the reports.

MP Grant Shapps obtained data from 171 NHS trusts in England, which showed there have been an extra 26,000 cases on top of the 176,450 infections reported.

C difficile is linked to twice as many deaths as MRSA, and, unlike the so-called superbug, C difficile infection rates are still on the rise. In 2006 they rose by 8% on the previous year to 55,000 infections.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "There is no room for complacency.

"We are clear - one avoidable infection is one too many and we are determined to ensure that the NHS has in place good hygiene and clinical procedures

How determined exactly? Are sufficient funds being invested to provide better cleaning procedures - and could it be more if the government weren't instead planning to waste billions of pounds extra on the EU?

The government might think it can get away with such poor judgement of priorities with public money. But how will MPs who vote to approve this unjustified increase in payments to the EU explain their choice to local voters who have been affected by this dangerous bug?

Especially if it's clear that more could have been done to prevent deaths, had more resources been made available.

Deadly NHS bug 'continues rising'

The BBC reports that more hospital patients in England are getting the deadly Clostridium difficile bug, according to new figures.

Health Protection Agency (HPA) data showed 55,681 cases were reported among over 65s in 2006 - up 8% in a year.

MRSA cases continued their downward trend, but they are not falling quickly enough to meet next year's target.

The HPA said C. difficile rates were "very high" and the Patients Association called for more to be done to protect patients from bugs.

Patients Association spokeswoman Katherine Murphy said: "Too many people are dying from these infections. We must learn from other countries such as Holland which have got infection rates close to zero.

"That is what we should be aiming for. We need to make NHS chief executives more accountable and ring-fence infection control budgets as it is to easy to raid them when there are cuts."

She also said all patients should be screened - at the moment only those at highest risk are routinely tested as they enter hospital.

The HPA does not look at deaths although figures from 2004 show that MRSA was mentioned on over 1,000 death certificates in England and Wales, while C difficile was listed on over 2,000.

Superbug kills almost as many as die on roads

The Daily Telegraph reports today that deaths from the hospital superbug, Clostridium difficile, are fast approaching the number of road fatalities, an expert has said.

Dr John Starr, reader in geriatric medicine at the University of Edinburgh, says that cases of C difficile rose by 5.5% over a year while MRSA cases fell by 4.3%.

"With more than 2,200 deaths attributed to C difficile in death certificates in England and Wales, the mortality rate is fast approaching that for road traffic accidents and is now around half that for suicide," he says in the British Medical Journal.

Road deaths in 2004 were 2,915.

Dr Starr says that more than 50,000 patients over the age of 65 suffered C difficile infection in hospitals in England last year compared with around 7,000 who caught MRSA.

"Control of C difficile is difficult because, unlike MRSA, alcohol hand scrubs are ineffective and its spores are resistant to routine hospital cleaning."

He says that patients on waiting lists should be screened before they are admitted to see if they are carrying the bacterium.

Superbug death was 'diabolical'

The widow of a man who fell victim to a superbug that has claimed 17 lives at a Norfolk hospital yesterday described his death as "diabolical" - reports the Sunday Telegraph.

Great-grandfather Leslie Burton-Pye, 74, was infected with Clostridium difficile in January while visiting the James Paget Hospital in Gorleston for a blood transfusion.

He fell ill soon after and was admitted to the hospital where he stayed until released in mid-March. He was re-admitted last Sunday and died the next day.

Yesterday, his widow, Mavis, 67, said: "I wish I hadn't let him go in for the transfusion. He had health problems before then but he lived with them and was okay up to the point where he went to hospital. It is heartbreaking."

Mrs Burton-Pye, who lived with her husband in the Norfolk Broads town of Acle, added: "He had just gone into hospital for some blood and picked this bug up. It is absolutely diabolical that he caught this thing on just a routine visit. I just can't believe he has gone. It won't sink in."

She said Mr Burton-Pye's family - including five children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren - had been devastated by his death.

Bosses at the hospital, which has been infected with the virulent "027" strain of the superbug, admit it could take 12 weeks to get the outbreak under control.

The 17 deaths, almost all of people aged 65 and over, have occurred since December. Sixteen more patients have been infected but survived.

The hospital has invested an extra £400,000 to tackle the outbreak but Wendy Slaney, the acting chief executive of the hospital, said it could take months to bring under control.

Perhaps the problem could be solved more quickly and more deaths avoided, if the trust had more money to invest in tackling it.

Sadly local MP Tony Wright intends to vote to improve government plans to hand 60% extra - £2.5bn more a year - to the EU ... a body that hasn't had its accounts approved for 12 years in a row.

What a waste of money, some of which could have been put to better use in his own constituency. A choice that's likely to be very hard to justify to local voters come the next election, when we point out such irresponsible actions with public funds.