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Ministry of Defence

Answer

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many cases of MRSA have been recorded in Ministry of Defence hospitals since 1997; and if he will make a statement. [216398] Mr. Caplin: The majority of secondary care for armed forces personnel is now provided at Ministry of Defence Hospital Units (MDHUs) which are based within NHS Trust hospitals around the UK. MRSA numbers are now monitored by the Infection Control Teams of each NHS Trust under the direction of a Consultant Microbiologist, not the MOD. The Department therefore does not hold these records. Royal hospital Haslar is currently an exception to this. Since April 2001 it has been run in partnership with Portsmouth hospital Trust. The number of cases of MRSA at Royal hospital Haslar are only available from the year 2000. Due to reasons of medical confidentiality, numbers are not broken down below five. Royal hospital Haslar: _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Number of cases 2000 15 2001 22 2002 66 2003 34 2004 26 2005 5 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 1 Less than five cases. The Ministry of Defence currently has two military hospitals at its permanent overseas bases in Cyprus and Gibraltar. Records for these bases are only held for the last five years and less than five cases of MRSA have been recorded. Those cases recorded have been transferred in from other hospitals and no new cases of MRSA have been identified in either hospital in this period.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

216398; 431 c252W;431 c251W

Session

2004-05

Subjects

Armed forces Hospitals Ministry of Defence MRSA

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk