Written question asked by Paul Flynn (Labour) on Monday, 20 March 2000, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 3 April 2000. It was answered by Yvette Cooper (Labour) on Monday, 3 April 2000 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Dept of Health

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what is his assessment of the total number of deaths which have resulted from (a) MRSA and (b) other hospital-acquired infection in each of the past 10 years. - Inc fact that there are no centrally held statistics on deaths caused by hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). (Holding answer 28 March 2000).

Answer: Mr. Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his assessment of the total number of deaths which have resulted from (a) MRSA and (b) other hospital- acquired infection in each of the past 10 years. [115946] Yvette Cooper: [holding answer 28 March 2000]: There are no centrally held statistics on deaths caused by hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), including Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Different doctors will have different views on the role of HAI in a patient's death. MRSA infection can take the form of many different diseases from trivial skin infection to pneumonia or septicaemia. Often the causative micro-organism is not specified on the death certificate. MRSA does not have a distinct code within the revision of the International Classification of Diseases used for encoding death registration data at the Office for National Statistics.

Secondary information