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MRSA: Death

Answer

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.Letter from Colin Mowl, dated 8 May 2007:"The National Statistician has have been asked to reply to your recent question asking how many deaths from MRSA contracted in NHS facilities there were in the period (a) 1987 to 1997 and (b) 1997 to 2007. I am replying in her absence. (136299)""Special analyses of deaths involving MRSA are undertaken annually by ONS for deaths which occurred in England and Wales. Data are only available from 1993 onwards and the most recent year available is 2005.""Death certificates rarely specify the place where an infection was acquired. Numbers of deaths from MRSA contracted in NHS facilities can therefore not be provided. Death certificates do, however, record the place of death. The table below presents the number of deaths mentioning MRSA by place of death from 1993 to 2005.""Most deaths occur in hospital, and the majority of deaths involving MRSA therefore also occur in hospital. Many deaths involving MRSA are to patients who were admitted to hospital because they were already seriously ill with another condition. MRSA only tends to cause problems if a person is already unwell, or if their immune system is suppressed, or if it can get into the bloodstream (through broken skin). People with these characteristics are more likely to be in hospital than elsewhere. People who die in hospital are also more likely to have been tested for MRSA."

Table 1: number of deaths mentioning MRSA¹ by place of death, England and Wales, 1993 to 2005²
	Own home	NHS general hospital	Non-NHS general hospital	Hospice	NHS nursing home	Non-NHS nursing home	Private residential home	Local authority residential home	Other places	Total
1993	0	45	0	0	1	1	1	0	3	51
1994	5	75	0	1	0	7	4	0	0	92
1995	2	172	1	2	0	12	1	0	9	199
1996	6	260	4	0	2	20	3	0	6	301
1997	4	332	0	3	4	24	10	1	11	389
1998	8	345	3	0	5	25	8	4	14	412
1999	4	422	4	1	4	25	7	2	18	487
2000	10	583	2	3	8	30	10	3	20	669
2001	11	649	1	3	9	32	11	1	17	734
2002	7	720	1	4	7	35	9	2	15	800
2003	12	855	2	2	15	36	15	4	14	955
2004	24	1,023	8	6	6	58	18	5	20	1,168
2005	22	1,412	5	9	13	87	37	9	35	1,629
Total	115	6,893	31	34	74	392	134	31	182	7,886
¹ Identified using the methodology described in Griffiths C, Lamagni TL, Crowcroft NS, Duckworth G and Rooney C (2004). Trends in MRSA in England and Wales: analysis of morbidity and mortality data for 1993-2002. ““Health Statistics Quarterly”” 21, 15-22.
² Deaths occurring in each calendar year.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

460 c188W;460 c188-90W; 136299

Session

2006-07

Subjects

Death MRSA

Link

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