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Health Care-Associated Infections

Absolutely. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman's work on the matter. The fact remains that more people die in hospital from thrombosis than from hospital-acquired infections. It is important that we keep a balance when we talk about the subject. None the less, some 300,000 cases of hospital-acquired infections occur every year, with some 5,000 deaths and an estimated cost to the NHS of about £1 billion, which could be spent on patient care and doing good things for patients. The NHS must take such infections very seriously.