Date: 2007-01-31
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New figures published by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) today showed the third consecutive reduction in MRSA levels in England - down 5.0% from the same period in 2005. Welcoming the reduction in MRSA levels, Health Minister Lord Hunt asked the NHS to work even harder to tackle C difficile rates and reminded the NHS of the new local target for C. difficile which the Government announced in December 2006. He also revealed that Trusts had applied for 90% of a £50 million Government fund to help hospitals install new facilities to tackle infections.
(Media-Newswire.com) - New figures published by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) today showed the third consecutive reduction in MRSA levels in England - down 5.0% from the same period in 2005.
Welcoming the reduction in MRSA levels, Health Minister Lord Hunt asked the NHS to work even harder to tackle C difficile rates and reminded the NHS of the new local target for C. difficile which the Government announced in December 2006.
He also revealed that Trusts had applied for 90% of a £50 million Government fund to help hospitals install new facilities to tackle infections.
Lord Hunt said "The NHS has been working hard to tackle infections and I commend those
trusts that are showing improvement. MRSA numbers continue to decline showing that Government measures, such as the cleanyourhands campaign, are clearly having an effect. The £50 million funding will give a cash injection to trusts to boost infection control measures.
"We recognise that, more work is needed to reduce C difficile and from April, PCTs and Trusts will have to set a local target to significantly
reduce the number of cases."
"In July 2006, the Government asked the HPA to publish infection data on a quarterly basis to ensure that the NHS could be clear about the challenge it faces and be open and transparent to keep the public informed."
Reiterating the Governments pledge to use the Hygiene Code, introduced last October to confront those Trusts that are not taking adequate measures Lord Hunt continued,
"Trusts that do not take adequate measures to comply with the Code of Practice are at risk of receiving an improvement notice and may ultimately be reported to the Secretary of State. Those who think that the Code has no teeth are mistaken. Safety must come first and should be a constant consideration for managers and clinicians."
Lord Hunt highlighted further measures implemented to successfully reduce rates of MRSA.
He continued; "In Kingston, the trust has taken hand hygiene compliance very seriously and adopted a key performance indicator at board level. Staff have been supported to challenge poor practice and the Trust has seen an improvement from 51% to over 96% in hand hygiene compliance ? and a 53% fall in MRSA numbers.
"Trusts must have good policies on prescribing and clinical practice to control infection because ultimately, patients have the power to choose
care in hospitals that are cleaner and have lower infection rates."
To further support Trusts, DH has commissioned updated national guidance for all staff for preventing healthcare associated infections. The Thames Valley University will publish these evidence-based guidelines, known as epic2, in the Journal of Hospital Infection this February.
Epic2 provide comprehensive guidance for preventing infections associated with the use of medical devices, as well as revised information on effective hand hygiene and the correct use of personal protective equipment. These measures support the DH delivery programme to reduce HCAIs (Saving Lives).
Professor Robert Pratt, the Director of the Guideline Development Teams said:
"Although not all healthcare-associated infections can be prevented, many can. The most effective way of minimising this risk and protecting patients and healthcare staff is to ensure that all healthcare practitioners incorporate the recommendations in the epic2 guidelines into their everyday clinical practice. If this is done consistently throughout the NHS, rates of preventable healthcare associated infections will plummet.
"It is everyone's responsibility to ensure that these guidelines, developed by the professions and based upon the best available evidence of effectiveness, are used as the core principles in all clinical areas for preventing infections in hospitals."
Notes to editors
1. In July 2006 Health Minister Andy Burnham asked the HPA to explore more frequent publication of data in order to help the NHS monitor progress and keep the public informed. The statistical data published by the Health Protection Agency today can be found at http://www.hpa.org.uk
2. epic2: National Evidence-Based Guidelines for Preventing Healthcare Associated infections in NHS hospitals in England were commissioned by the Department of Health and developed by a nurse-led multi-professional team of researchers and specialist clinicians in the Richard Wells Research Centre at Thames Valley University (TVU).
3. The Health Act and the supporting Code of Practice for the Prevention and Control of Healthcare Associated Infection gives powers to deal with organisations that consistently fail to tackle infection.
The Act gives the Healthcare Commission new powers to issue improvement orders and impose sanctions for bodies that significantly fail to meet its requirements. Trusts will begin to make declarations of compliance with the code as part of their annual assessment from April 2007. The Code can be found at http://www.dh.gov.uk
4. The Healthcare Commission is responsible for monitoring the Code and where it considers that an NHS body is failing to comply, the inspectorate has a new power to issue an "improvement notice" stipulating the action that it considers the body should take, against a specified timescale, to meet the code.
The Commission may recommend how the NHS body should go about achieving compliance. If an organisation satisfies the inspectorate
that they have taken appropriate steps, then there would be no further action. Where, in the opinion of the inspectorate, the organisation still fails in significant ways to comply with the Code,
they would be reported to the Secretary of State, or to Monitor in respect of Foundation Trusts. Improvement notices are likely to start being issued in April 2007 and the DH will work closely with the HCC to ensure that improvement occurs.
5. Information on the local Clostridium difficile target (Healthcare associated infections, in particular infection caused by Clostridium difficile December 2006) can be found at
http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/14/11/63/04141163.pdf
6. DH funded a national prevalence survey of hospital acquired infections last year and Trusts will shortly be able to analyse their own data and bench mark their performance against national data.
Information on the third prevalence survey is available at
http://www.his.org.uk/highlight_items.cfm?cit_id=461&FAArea1=customWidgets.content_view_1&usecache=false
7. Since July 2006 DH have provided the following additional guidance
- Tool for renal units to make practice safer
- Critical care guidance in reducing HCAI
- Additional High Impact Intervention for renal dialysis care
- MRSA Screening and decolonisation advice
Further information on these items can be found at
http://www.dh.gov.uk/reducingmrsa
8. Examples of hospitals showing a marked fall in MRSA bacteraemia numbers on the previous summer (April-Sept 2005 compared to 06)
Aintree* -30%
Guys -37%
Hull* -34%
Kingston* -53%
Lewisham -29%
Northumbria* -37%
Sheffield Teaching -40%
QE King's Lynn -73%
Trusts marked * worked with DH Improvement Teams during this time.
For all other queries please contact the DH Public Enquiries line on 0207
210 4850
Client ref 2007/0020
GNN ref 143488P