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Written question asked by Baroness Featherstone (Liberal Democrat) on Monday, 20 June 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 22 June 2005. It was answered by Lord Touhig (Labour) on Tuesday, 28 June 2005 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

MRSA

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many cases of MRSA have been recorded in his Department's hospitals since 1997; and if he will make a statement.
Answer

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 MOD therefore does not hold these records.Royal Hospital Haslar (RHH) 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 RHH are only available from the year 2000. Due to reasons of medical confidentiality, numbers are not broken down below five.

Royal Hospital Haslar
Cases
2000 Less than 5
2001 22
2002 66
2003 34
2004 26
2005 20 (to date)

The MOD 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 in Cyprus, and none in Gibraltar. 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
6701; 435 c1398W
Session
2005-06
Subjects
Armed forces Hospitals MRSA