Tweet
Hospitals fail to report spread of new superbug 'more dangerous than MRSA'
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 05/11/2006
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>The spread of a dangerous new superbug through hospitals is being hugely underestimated by the Government's reporting scheme, NHS staff have admitted.
The shambolic state of infection control on wards is exposed in a survey by the Patients' Association. It found only about a quarter of trusts are gathering data on Clostridium difficile (C. diff), the bacterium that experts say poses more of arisk to public health than MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=307 align=right border=0 hspace="0"><TBODY><TR><TD width=8 rowSpan=2></TD><TD width=299><CENTER></CENTER></TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption><CENTER>
</CENTER>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The bug is feared to have claimed at least 70 lives in the past year.
The findings from 500 infection-control nurses and managers follow mounting concern over the threat to patients' health from C. diff, which can cause severe illness and death in those with weakened immune systems, particularly the elderly.
The bacterium, which spreads easily through unhygienic and filthy wards, is the major cause of infectious diarrhoea, but it can also cause high temperatures and severe inflammation, and comes with a death rate of about five per cent.
Cases rose by more than 17 per cent last year, with 51,000 C. diff infections reported to the Health Protection Agency - but it appears the true number of those affected could be much higher.
<SCRIPT language=javascript src="/core/NetGravity/mpu.js"></SCRIPT>The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust admitted last month that C. diff was likely to have killed 28 patients and was implicated in the deaths of a further 21 people since January.
At least 20 patients are feared to have died as a result of infection with the bacterium at Maidstone Hospital in Kent earlier this year and the Healthcare Commission is holding an inquiry. The Health Protection Agency has required all trusts, since 2004, to report hospital-acquired infections with C. diff in the over-65s, but the Patients' Association survey revealed that only 27 per cent of staff said this was happening in their hospital.
Nearly half of respondents said not all hospital staff were adequately trained in infection control and 47 per cent complained that much-needed cash for training was not ring-fenced.
Katharine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: "Collection of data about this very dangerous infection is haphazard to say the least, and we are not getting the true picture. How can patients have confidence in their hospitals if the real threat posed by C. diff is being played down?"
Dr Mark Enright, a microbiologist at Imperial College London, said that the government agency's monitoring scheme was flawed because a new and more dangerous strain of C. diff had emerged in the past year or so, striking patients aged 40 and over.
"The HPA monitoring system was set up hurriedly before this new aggressive type emerged, and what we are not getting from their reports is the number of people in the community with this form of C. diff, and the number of younger hospital patients affected," he said. "Some of the cases of diarrhoea are so severe that hospital treatment is needed. Once in a hospital it [the bacterium] can spread like wildfire and everyone on the ward will have some degree of infection.
"We need to know how many cases there are right across all age groups, not just the oldest ones, although they are more vulnerable."
A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said the mandatory surveillance for C. diff was one of the most accurate national systems worldwide. "In 2005 all acute hospitals treating adult patients reported cases to the HPA. There is no evidence of widespread under-reporting and we are confident current figures are a broadly accurate estimate of the true number of people with C. diff in England and Wales."
A Department of Health spokesman said clean, safe care was not an "optional extra" for the NHS, adding: "Infection control should be a core activity for trusts."
Full results of the Patients' Association survey are due to be released tomorrow.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/ma.../06/nbug05.xml
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>The spread of a dangerous new superbug through hospitals is being hugely underestimated by the Government's reporting scheme, NHS staff have admitted.
The shambolic state of infection control on wards is exposed in a survey by the Patients' Association. It found only about a quarter of trusts are gathering data on Clostridium difficile (C. diff), the bacterium that experts say poses more of arisk to public health than MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=307 align=right border=0 hspace="0"><TBODY><TR><TD width=8 rowSpan=2></TD><TD width=299><CENTER></CENTER></TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption><CENTER>
</CENTER>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The bug is feared to have claimed at least 70 lives in the past year.
The findings from 500 infection-control nurses and managers follow mounting concern over the threat to patients' health from C. diff, which can cause severe illness and death in those with weakened immune systems, particularly the elderly.
The bacterium, which spreads easily through unhygienic and filthy wards, is the major cause of infectious diarrhoea, but it can also cause high temperatures and severe inflammation, and comes with a death rate of about five per cent.
Cases rose by more than 17 per cent last year, with 51,000 C. diff infections reported to the Health Protection Agency - but it appears the true number of those affected could be much higher.
<SCRIPT language=javascript src="/core/NetGravity/mpu.js"></SCRIPT>The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust admitted last month that C. diff was likely to have killed 28 patients and was implicated in the deaths of a further 21 people since January.
At least 20 patients are feared to have died as a result of infection with the bacterium at Maidstone Hospital in Kent earlier this year and the Healthcare Commission is holding an inquiry. The Health Protection Agency has required all trusts, since 2004, to report hospital-acquired infections with C. diff in the over-65s, but the Patients' Association survey revealed that only 27 per cent of staff said this was happening in their hospital.
Nearly half of respondents said not all hospital staff were adequately trained in infection control and 47 per cent complained that much-needed cash for training was not ring-fenced.
Katharine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: "Collection of data about this very dangerous infection is haphazard to say the least, and we are not getting the true picture. How can patients have confidence in their hospitals if the real threat posed by C. diff is being played down?"
Dr Mark Enright, a microbiologist at Imperial College London, said that the government agency's monitoring scheme was flawed because a new and more dangerous strain of C. diff had emerged in the past year or so, striking patients aged 40 and over.
"The HPA monitoring system was set up hurriedly before this new aggressive type emerged, and what we are not getting from their reports is the number of people in the community with this form of C. diff, and the number of younger hospital patients affected," he said. "Some of the cases of diarrhoea are so severe that hospital treatment is needed. Once in a hospital it [the bacterium] can spread like wildfire and everyone on the ward will have some degree of infection.
"We need to know how many cases there are right across all age groups, not just the oldest ones, although they are more vulnerable."
A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said the mandatory surveillance for C. diff was one of the most accurate national systems worldwide. "In 2005 all acute hospitals treating adult patients reported cases to the HPA. There is no evidence of widespread under-reporting and we are confident current figures are a broadly accurate estimate of the true number of people with C. diff in England and Wales."
A Department of Health spokesman said clean, safe care was not an "optional extra" for the NHS, adding: "Infection control should be a core activity for trusts."
Full results of the Patients' Association survey are due to be released tomorrow.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/ma.../06/nbug05.xml
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>