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Health Care-Associated Infections

I am at risk of getting into trouble with Madam Deputy Speaker, but that is important. Thrombosis is a hidden problem that does not get the attention it deserves. Health care-acquired infections are a problem not only in hospitals but in care homes and nursing homes. A recently received parliamentary answer showed a rise in deaths in private care homes, too. We must ensure that attention is given to those services as well as to acute hospitals. Some 3 per cent. of the healthy adult population carry C. difficile in their bodies. It is prevalent in the community and is not a problem merely for our acute hospitals. The motion rightly draws attention to the Healthcare Commission report on Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. The Secretary of State's statement on 15 October focused specifically on the trust's failings. In many respects, that was right: the failings were substantial and in some instances grotesque. Reports that nurses and others told patients to go in their beds were unimaginable, and we would all condemn that action. The report also raised issues that are the Government's responsibility. The Secretary of State is right to say that we should not try to score party political points, but he would accept that it is the Opposition parties' job to hold the Government to account and to ask pertinent questions. I want to go through some of the issues that the Healthcare Commission raised that are ultimately the Government's responsibility. The Secretary of State said that there is no direct link between bed occupancy rates and the incidence of hospital-acquired infections, but he cannot deny the clear evidence that such infections are more prevalent in hospitals with high occupancy rates. Page 6 of the Healthcare Commission report states:"““The trust's bed occupancy rates were consistently over 90 per cent. in the medical wards at both Maidstone Hospital and Kent and Sussex Hospital. Higher bed occupancy led to less time for thorough cleaning of beds and the areas around them between one patient's moving and another occupying the same bed.””" That is pretty clear, and the Government need to take careful note of what the Healthcare Commission says. Later, the report states:"““The report of the National Audit Office in 2004 found that preventing infections continued to be adversely affected by other NHS trust-wide policies and priorities. The increased throughput of patients to meet performance targets resulted in considerable pressure towards higher bed occupancy, which was not always consistent with good infection control and bed management practices. Higher bed occupancy meant that there was less time for thorough cleaning of beds and bed spaces between admissions of individual patients and a higher probability of transmission of infection between patients. Seventy-one per cent. of trusts were still operating in bed occupancy levels higher than the 82 per cent. that the Department of Health reported it hoped to achieve by 2003-04.””" That is how the Healthcare Commission reported these concerns, so what has happened? The recent Liberal Democrat analysis of official Government figures found that almost half of NHS trusts have occupancy rates above the recommended level, that a quarter have occupancy rates above 90 per cent, and that 22 hospitals have occupancy rates above 95 per cent. Hospitals are frequently completely full, and the Secretary of State must recognise that the risk is that corners will be cut, as the commission suggested.