Dirty hospitals must clean up, says Gordon Brown

Dirty hospitals must clean up, says Brown - Guardian

Extract:

"A drive to slash the rates of MRSA and other hospital infections is being masterminded by Gordon Brown, who is convinced that the public's perception of the NHS has been swayed by concerns over cleanliness on the wards.

Brown has told close colleagues that they will never win 'hearts and minds' over the health service reforms until they can demonstrate that the wards really are cleaner, and that they are cutting the numbers of patients being infected.

The Prime Minister and his aides have become alarmed that one in four hospitals is still not meeting the hygiene targets imposed in November 2004 by the then Health Secretary John Reid. Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) now affect some 300,000 people a year, and despite better control measures appear to be epidemic in some areas. The government is unlikely to meet the target it has set itself, of halving the numbers diagnosed with MRSA by next April.

Brown chose to highlight the issue of hospital cleanliness yesterday, on his first visit to a hospital - Kingston, in south-west London - as Prime Minister. A team of experts is being set up within the Department of Health to look at new measures to deal with the problem. The new health minister, the surgeon Professor Ara Darzi, will be asked to devise a new strategy to combat the infections.

Since MRSA first hit British hospitals 10 years ago, it has spread across the country, as an increasing number of people became resistant to antibiotics, coupled with poor cleaning on the wards and the fast turnover of patients."


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British hospitals are 'among worst for superbugs'

British hospitals 'among worst for superbugs' - Telegraph

Extract:

"British hospitals are among the worst in Europe for superbugs, according to figures published yesterday.

In a league table of 29 countries only Portugal, Malta, Cyprus and Romania have higher proportions of potentially deadly antibiotic-resistant hospital-acquired infections.

Only some forms of superbugs are resistant to antibiotics - including those known as MRSA. They are part of the staphylococcus aureus family of bacteria that can live on the skin or in the nose and can cause a range of illnesses and symptoms from boils and abscesses to life-threatening diseases such as meningitis and septicaemia.

The bacteria become dangerous to patients once they enter the bloodstream and those that are resistant to antibiotics pose the greatest threat.

The European Union's Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) report on communicable diseases ranked countries based on the proportion of S aureus infections found to be antibiotic-resistant.

With an MRSA rate of 44 per cent, Britain was found to be the fifth worst for superbug resistance, behind countries including Greece, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic."

You can boost your own immunity to infection by reducing your intake of salt and salty food. This will improve your health in many other ways too, and will reduce your weight if you are overweight.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
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MRSA deaths up 30-fold in decade. Hospitals commonly avoid listing it as a cause of death.

Superbug deaths up 30-fold in decade - Sunday Telegraph

Extracts:

"A huge rise in deaths linked to the superbug MRSA in just over a decade has been revealed in official figures.

The number of death certificates that name the infection as a "contributory factor" has soared from 51 cases in 1993 - the first year in which records were kept - to 1,629 in 2005, a 30-fold increase.

Experts and campaigners believe that even this figure is only the tip of the iceberg because many hospitals try to avoid listing MRSA as a cause of death if they can find alternative explanations."

"Dr Mark Enright, a microbiologist at Imperial College, London said: "I would expect that the death figures substantially under-report the true situation. In a lot of cases, MRSA doesn't make it on to the death certificate when it should. Instead you see organ failure, pneumonia, or sepsis.

"Often it is hard to say exactly how much of a contribution MRSA caused to the death, but there is a tendency not to include it."

Dr Enright, who accused the Government of focusing on waiting lists and NHS targets at the expense of infection control, described the rise in MRSA over the past 12 years as "startling". He said that neither the number of deaths officially linked to MRSA nor the rate of bloodstream infections provided a full picture.

"I would say bloodstream infections account for 10 per cent of the infections in total," he said. "If people tested every infection, the rate would be far, far higher.""

You can boost your immunity to infection by reducing your salt intake.

Patients in need of a hip replacement or knee surgery will be able to choose from any NHS hospital from July.

Hip patients told: choose your NHS surgery - Sunday Telegraph

Extracts:

"Patients in need of a hip replacement or knee surgery will be able to choose from any NHS hospital from July.

The policy will be backed by a £15 million government website showing how hospitals compare on MRSA rates, waiting times, and cleanliness. The website, due to launch in the summer will also allow all patients to look up their conditions in a medical library, with information kite-marked by experts."

"The NHS will pay the travel costs of patients opting for hospitals far from home. But the Department of Health's own research shows choice has got off to a slow start. Findings published in November indicate only 30 per cent of patients believed their GP had told them of their right to choose."

"Vanessa Bourne, of the Patients' Association, welcomed attempts to give the public more health information, but she said it was vital to make sure that the elderly, the largest group using the NHS, did not lose out because some were not IT-literate."


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)