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Health Care-Associated Infections

I beg to move, To leave out from ““House”” to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:"““recognises that healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) are a worldwide problem; acknowledges that the recent Comprehensive Spending Review settlement for the NHS includes £270 million to tackle HCAI; welcomes the initiatives the NHS is taking to manage infection control, including a new ““bare below the elbows”” dress code, new clinical guidance to increase the use of isolation for infected patients published in September, every hospital to undertake a deep clean as part of a wider drive for a culture of cleanliness, matrons and clinical directors to report directly to trust boards on infection control and cleanliness, annual infection control inspections of all acute trusts using teams of specialist inspectors, and MRSA screening for all elective admissions next year; further welcomes the introduction of legislation for a new health and adult social care regulator with tough powers to inspect, investigate and intervene in hospitals that do not meet rigorous standards for cleanliness and a new legal requirement on chief executives to report all MRSA bacteraemias and clostridium difficile infections to the Health Protection Agency; believes that centrally determined targets for tackling HCAIs are the most effective way of ensuring infection levels are reduced in every hospital; notes that as a consequence MRSA bloodstream infection numbers are falling; and welcomes the Better Care for All PSA Delivery Agreement, which sets two new targets for the period 2010-11 to keep MRSA bloodstream infections below half the numbers of 2003-04, and to deliver a 30 per cent. reduction in clostridium difficile infections from the numbers in 2007-08.””" This is an important debate. Patients have a right to clean and safe treatment wherever they are treated in the NHS. Safety in health care, an essential element of every medical procedure, must be our priority. We have put in place a wide-ranging series of measures to tackle infections and improve cleanliness. Health care-associated infections are acquired as a consequence of treatment for a medical condition. The problem is not new, nor is it unique to the UK. HCAIs affect every health service in the world, and prevalence in the UK is similar to that in other developed countries. For example, the rate of HCAIs is 9 per cent. in England, while rates vary between 6 and 10 per cent. in France and between 5 and 10 per cent. in the United States. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) mentioned Holland, which has enjoyed good success in tackling MRSA, but its rate of health care-associated infections is 7 per cent., which is very close to the rate in the UK. The two major health care-associated infections in the UK are MRSA and clostridium difficile. MRSA is a bacterial infection that is resistant to commonly used antibiotics. It can infect surgical wounds and ulcers and, more seriously, can cause bloodstream infections. Clostridium difficile is a bacterium that naturally lives in the gut. Again, it particularly affects the elderly. When antibiotics kill off normal, healthy bacteria, the consequences can be severe, so antibiotic prescribing policies are even more important in controlling the disease.