MRSA Action UK: Is the DoH putting their own interests before those of the patient who they are charged to care for?

Tuesday, 16 August 2011 9:35 AM

MRSA Action UK health warning on misleading headlines as Department of Health proclaim hospitals are MRSA-free

Since becoming Chair of MRSA Action UK in 2007 I have constantly stated that the three key components to help in the reduction of avoidable healthcare infections which have blighted so many lives are Information, Communication and Education. The previous Government made a commendable start with the introduction of mandatory reporting and releasing of the infection rates in our hospitals in 2004 and of course the gathering of this information has greatly helped to reduce the infection rates which were so endemic in our hospitals at that time.

There have been other initiatives which have helped to supplement this start, however it is in the Communication and Education that the previous and present Government are somewhat lacking. There has been no formal system to educate the public regarding avoidable healthcare infections despite our protestations that this could have been done during the past “Swine Flu Outbreak” and that more can still be done despite resistance from those in the medical, political and regulatory establishments. In the arena of communication we believe that all Governments past and present tend to use this for their own gratification in portraying that they have any situation totally under control, which if anything is totally the opposite from our experience.

Take the recent announcement from the department of health that “MRSA in the NHS is at a record low – 25 acute trusts are MRSA free for more than a year”. At first glance on reading this you would think that we have had a huge success in controlling something that was only recently believed by many within the Department of Health and the NHS establishments to be in effect inevitable, well it isn’t. Looking back just 19 years ago infection rates for MRSA in our hospitals stood at just 1.7%, this repudiates what is considered by the Department of Health as a record low. Infections began to rise because of successive Governments cutting funding or asking those managers within the NHS to get more efficiencies per patient. We became overly dependent on antibiotics and dropped the guard on hygiene and training in aseptic techniques, and we let MRSA and other pathogens out of the genie bottle. This led to infection rates for MRSA alone to rise to 40%+ by 2004/5 for all Staph Aureas infections, a level that was directly a disgrace to a modern society.

Over recent years, there has been three types of information in the public realm, they are, firstly bad news, which has been a focus of public outrage and fear. Secondly good news - which is tailored for the political agenda, rather than informing and educating, and finally thirdly accurate news, which people deserve, but is seldom given out, as we have to take the news with a slant, rather than being transparent and balanced.

Take the recent announcement about 25 hospitals being free of MRSA for more than a year which when measured account for only 15% of all NHS Trusts in England. This is completely disingenuous and in my view an insult to the intelligence of the British public in giving the impression that those hospitals are MRSA free. It is in our opinion, difficult for the Department of Health to proclaim this headline, and yet herald it as being accurate when they cannot say with complete certainty that it is true, and that any hospital is totally MRSA free. It is only by reading the small print in the article that you get the meaning of the headline that the Department of Health are talking about bloodstream infections, however the headlines give a different perception to the public.

The accurate headline should have stated “MRSA bloodstream infections in the NHS is at a new low – 25 acute trusts have reported no MRSA bloodstream infections for more than a year”. There are many other types of MRSA infections that many patients have suffered including pneumonias, skin, surgical site, respiratory, and catheter associated urinary tract infections, strange there was no mention of these in the latest headline from the Department of Health, which from our own experience, be just as debilitating and life threatening.

Staphylococcal bloodstream infections and bloodstream infections from other organisms remain at a high level, both in hospital and in the community setting, we have a long way to go to tackle the problem and no Government or the Department of Health should shy away from this. Antibiotic resistance remains a major threat in setting us back to the pre-antibiotic era in terms of the advanced surgery that relies on their effectiveness.

The corner stone for Andrew Lansley and this Coalition Government has been the promise of a more transparent Government in comparison to the last or previous Governments. However as time marches on we are seeing that this transparency is under some threat from those within the medical and regulatory establishments. There are some within the Health Protection Agency and the Department of Health who would like to remove some of the information and communication and education regarding the screening program and the release of the infection data. They feel that there is no relevant benefit to the patients and that some infection control teams within hospitals have said that “it is not a sensible use of our time and unscientific and that the time to do this is not insignificant”. Are they now looking at putting their own interests before those of the patient who they are charged to care for?

In relation to transparency, we as an organisation have seen none of this on these two issues, as we had not been invited to the review of this information.

I was once given the advice that “You can only build trust on strong foundations of honesty” for we all have a stake in ensuring that we pass on to our children a healthcare system safer than the one inherited from our parents.

Derek Butler
Chair
MRSA Action UK
Tel No 07762-741114
http://mrsaactionuk.net       

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