Hospitals to battle deadly bug with £400,000 funding

Oct 12 2007 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

THE Royal Liverpool Hospital is stepping up its fight against deadly hospital bug C difficile by using £400,000 of fresh government funding to buy equipment and train staff.

The news comes in the wake of a Healthcare Commission report condemning a Kent NHS trust for a “litany” of errors, which resulted in 90 deaths from the bacterial infection, which mainly affects the elderly.

The Royal and Broadgreen University Hospital Trust (RBUHT) has announced it will use recently-awarded government money to introduce a new scheme to combat hospital bugs and Aintree Hospital Trust claims a programme of deep cleaning wards is helping to reduce infection.

Latest Health Protection Agency (HPA) figures show cases of C Diff increased dramatically in Merseyside in the first three months of this year. But cases of MRSA fell in the same period.

The Royal Liverpool and Broad-green hospitals had an unprece-dented 195 cases of C Diff, a 58% increase on the 124 people diag-nosed for the same period in 2006.

Wirral Hospitals’ cases rose by 80% to 178, also well up on last year’s figure for the same period of 125, while North Cheshire’s 124 is almost double that of the same period last year.

All three figures are the highest for each trust since full HPA records began in January 2004.

However, Aintree’s figures did drop and internal records from the hospital show that this trend continued between April and September 2007.

Yesterday’s Healthcare Commission report condemns the handling of a C Diff outbreak by Kent’s Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust.

The commission began investigations after several complaints were made about cleanliness – sometimes nurses did not have time to wash their hands properly, and left patients to lie in their own excrement because they had not been able to assist them to a commode.

It concluded the infection was definitely or probably the main cause of death for 90 patients and said the Trust did not prioritise effectively.

A spokesman for RBUHT said: “We take this issue extremely seriously and are very pleased to have secured this government money. Parts of the new programme include funding a team of nurses to train ward staff on techniques and the purchase of new equipment. The Trusts know this is an issue that is not going to go away and we must strive to keep on top of it.”

And an Aintree Hospital Trust spokesman said figures were drop-ping due to a thorough cleaning programme: “Thorough cleaning of rooms and equipment, particu-larly commodes and toilet areas, is being carried out and more side rooms are being created.

“There is a programme of deep cleaning of wards and Medical Microbiologists are involved in ward rounds to ensure appro-priate antibiotic prescribing, along with active surveillance and monitoring of all cases of C Diff.”

lizawilliams