Written question asked by Evan Harris (Liberal Democrat) on Monday, 8 September 2003, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 6 October 2003. It was answered by Stephen Ladyman (Labour) on Monday, 6 October 2003 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Dept of Health

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many reports of MRSA outside hospitals there were in (a) England, (b) each region and (c) each strategic health authority in each of the last six years. - Inc ref to www.phls.co.uk/publications/cdr/PDFfiles/2002/cdr2502.pdf.

Answer: Dr. Evan Harris: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many reports of MRSA outside hospitals there were in (a) England, (b) each region and (c) each strategic health authority in each of the last six years. [128922] Dr. Ladyman: A new national mandatory surveillance system for healthcare associated infection started with reporting of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) blood stream infections (bacteraemias), in April 2001. All acute trusts in England now collect this information and results for the first year of this scheme (April 2001 to March 2002) were published by individual trust in the Communicable Disease Report Weekly on 20 June 2002. They are available at www.phls.co.uk/ publications/cdr/PDFfiles/2002/cdr2502.pdf. Information for 2002-03 will be published shortly. This data does not include information on where the infection was acquired (hospital or elsewhere). However, the majority of cases are acquired in hospital.

Secondary information