---

Health Care-Associated Infections

We would need to see evidence of that. If the hon. Gentleman has it, he should let us see it. I would be perfectly willing to investigate that important allegation. As the HPA's infection expert said, a seemingly unstoppable rise in MRSA took place in the 1990s. The number of clostridium dificile cases in the 65 and over group has fallen to 13,660, which is a reduction of 7 per cent. compared with the same quarter last year and a 13 per cent. reduction on the previous quarter. Although I welcome this debate, it is important that we try not to play party politics with an issue as vital as patient safety. For that reason, I have declined to mention the rise of HCAIs under the previous Government. [Interruption.] Well, I did not dwell on it, and Conservative Members should not tempt me to do so, because an explosion in MRSA took place during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire makes reference to the outbreak that occurred at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. I agree completely with the points that he made about the failures of management and the disgraceful attempt by its chair to blame the public and then to blame the nursing staff alone. Some failures by the nursing staff did take place, but when one reads the report, as I know the hon. Gentleman has done, one learns of an abject failure in training and in prescribing antibiotics, and of a failure right through from the medical director to staff on the wards. That must come down to a failure in leadership. The hon. Gentleman made a point about the trust's leadership and the powers available to me. He is right that I could have used a section 66 power. However, all that leadership has now gone. As soon as the Stoke Mandeville report was published last July, the chair and chief executive went, but it was not as simple as that in the case of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. However, as he said, its chair, its chief executive, its five non-executive directors and its medical director have gone, and the trust has a new management team.