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Health Bill

This is simply a group of minor drafting and technical amendments. Although amendments Nos. 13 to 15 are technical drafting amendments, they are important nevertheless, as they alter the definition of health care associated infection in the Bill and relate to the scope of the code of practice. It has always been the policy intention that the code can include requirements concerning infections that are caused or exacerbated by organisms already present on or in a patient’s body at the time of their entry into the health care environment. An example would be bacteria that are already present on a patient’s skin at the time of their admission to hospital and that infect a patient during or after surgery. We had thought that the definition used by the Health Bill included such infections, so that the Secretary of State would have been able to include requirements relating to them in the code of practice. However, on further reflection in the other place, we realised that the definition used was capable of another interpretation that excluded infections caused by bacteria present on the patient’s skin which subsequently infected the patient as a result of the provision of health care. Such an interpretation would have meant that requirements relating to the prevention and control of those infections would have been outside the scope of the code of practice. We therefore brought forward Lords amendments Nos. 13 to 15 to make sure that infections arising from micro-organisms present on or in the patient’s body prior to the person’s entry into the health care system are included in the definition of health care associated infection used by the Bill.