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Health Care-Associated Infections

I beg to move,"That this House supports NHS staff in their efforts to minimise healthcare associated infections; notes with distress the failings disclosed in the report by the Healthcare Commission into the outbreaks of clostridium difficile at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust; deplores the failure by the Department of Health to secure new leadership at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust at an earlier stage; regrets the repeated failure of the Government to ensure compliance with proven methods of containing infections, including screening prior to admission, adequate isolation facilities and optimum bed occupancy rates; and calls on the Government to support NHS bodies in implementing zero tolerance strategies for healthcare-associated infections." Time and again, we have brought Ministers to the Chamber to try to get action to combat infections in hospitals. Time and again, they stand at the Dispatch Box and say that that is a priority. Time and again, the independent evidence shows their subsequent failure to do what is proven to be needed. The Healthcare Commission's report on the outbreaks at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust is only the latest, although possibly the worst, example of such reports. When we brought the Secretary of State to the House, he said that that was an exception, but in 2005, the latest year for which we have figures, 3,807 deaths were reported to be associated with Clostridium difficile, and 1,629 with MRSA. In 2006 some 20 NHS Trusts had C. diff rates higher than those reported at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, although I hope that very few of those trusts are responsible for the kind of failings that were disclosed at Maidstone. The purpose of the debate is once again to demand that the Government implement the comprehensive strategies against hospital-acquired infections that they have been advised to pursue for years. In particular, we hold the Secretary of State to account for his failure to act in relation to the failings at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells. In our motion I have focused on three main topics—screening, isolation facilities and bed occupancy rates. I acknowledge that there is much else that will form part of a comprehensive strategy, including an antibiotic regime, high cleaning standards, improved hand hygiene, surveillance and new technologies for antimicrobial techniques and surfaces. I set out much of that in our previous debate in January, but I draw attention to the three matters that I mentioned, over which the Government could exercise influence through investment and policy. In the chief medical officer's report ““Winning Ways””, published in December 2003, he stated:"““Some countries have been particularly successful in controlling MRSA.. Notable is the experience of the Netherlands. The Dutch strategy has been based on a policy of 'search and destroy'. This involves screening patients for MRSA and isolating those found to be positive. . .The Dutch have been able to set aside sufficient ""numbers of single rooms in modern hospitals and maintain a high healthcare worker to patient ratio. As a result, this approach has been remarkably successful.””" So for nearly four years—I am sure hon. Members sometimes get tired of hearing us go on about it—based on that evidence, we have been calling for a search and destroy strategy. If the Government had listened to the chief medical officer in the first place, and latterly to us, we would be halfway through the process of removing endemic infections, particularly MRSA, in our hospitals, and we would be halfway to achieving some of the MRSA rates experienced in the Netherlands and Denmark, and, as the European antimicrobial resistance surveillance survey published Europe-wide this week suggests, we would have made greater progress in the same direction as France has done. Thus far, however, we have not matched its performance.