What are Hospital Infections

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The government has been accused of "tinkering" with hospital infection statistics and has recently called for all hospital staff to be screened and treated for MRSA.
The vice-president of the Patient's Association said he wants to see a much "tougher line" including the sacking of hospital managers who fail to enforce patient safety standards.

What are hospital infections?
Experts use the term “healthcare-associated infection” this encompasses all infections that are caught in hospital or as a result of treatment. MRSA is one major infection which has dominated the news headlines in recent years.
MRSA is the antibiotic resistant form of Staphylococcus Aureus - a bug that lives on the skin but can cause infection when it has the chance to enter the body, for example through a wound or during surgery.

This is one infection which has been right at the centre of government policy to tackle healthcare-associated infections but it is certainly not the only problematic infection in hospital.

What do the latest figures show?
Figures are published by the Health Protection Agency, However the government's healthcare watchdog has warned that the figures mask huge variations between different hospitals across parts of the country and some are not achieving the infection control they should be.

What is the government doing to tackle the problem?
A spokesman for the Department of Health said they had introduced a "raft of measures" to tackle healthcare-associated infections, including more matrons to enforce hygiene standards and a "deep clean" of all hospitals in England.
A "Clean, Safe Care" strategy to tackle healthcare-associated infections in the NHS is backed by funding of £270m a year, he said.
There are also plans to introduce MRSA screening for all elective patients by March 2009 and for all emergency patients as soon as possible over the next three years.
In 2006, the hygiene code was introduced in response to a report from the Healthcare Commission warning of poor standards of cleanliness in a significant proportion of hospitals in England. The hygiene code lists the actions that NHS organisations in England must take to ensure the risk of infection is kept as low as possible.
Compliance with the code has been monitored since 2007.

Is it enough?
While figures suggest that strategies employed to reduce rates of healthcare-associated infection have had an effect, experts routinely warn that significantly more work is needed and it is vital for hospitals not to become complacent.
There has been much debate about the validity of the approach taken so far and some steps such as the multi-million pound "deep-clean" initiative were criticised in some quarters for being little more than a publicity stunt.
News that the target to halve MRSA bloodstream infections had been achieved was quickly followed by a report from the Healthcare Commission warning that a quarter of all NHS trusts were struggling to meet the hygiene code.
It also showed that only just over half of hospitals had managed a sustained reduction in MRSA rates.

A senior executive of the Healthcare Commission said more needed to be done with some trusts still having "some way to go" on the basics. Recently there have also been warnings that there is too much focus on MRSA and which means that hospitals are taking their eye of the ball when it comes to other bacterial infections.
The Department of Health said it had taken "tough actions" which are "clearly making an impact".

What about screening NHS staff?
There are repeated calls for screening of MRSA among NHS staff. One expert, from Imperial College said the idea made a lot of sense but would be expensive to implement.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said professional guidance had not recommended routine screening of staff for MRSA, but a hospital infection control team may advise screening if they have evidence to suggest that a staff member or members may be the source of linked cases of MRSA infection.