Cutting infection is a task for all of us

12:04pm Friday 31st October 2008

HEREFORDSHIRE Primary Care Trust, as the lead NHS organisation in the county, has, with the County Hospital, a ‘zero tolerance’ policy for the prevention of infections associated with healthcare. But there is plenty the public could do to help.

Many factors contribute to infection rates, as with everywhere else. These include inappropriate use of antibiotics, high demand on hospital facilities, and the fact that many people in the general population naturally carry the organisms responsible for these infections in their nostrils, skin and or bowel.

Tackling these factors require all of us - as patients, visitors to healthcare institutions, and NHS staff - to work together to reduce the risks posed by healthcare associated infections.

In Herefordshire, we screen newly admitted hospital patients to ensure early identification of cases and eradication of organisms responsible for infections.

Our hospital doctors, nurses, and GPs use antibiotics appropriately, based on rigorous guidelines developed locally. Staff are trained to lead on infection prevention and control work in their service areas.

We promote hand hygiene among staff and visitors, and undertake regular cleaning of all local healthcare facilities.

Recently, the primary care trust became a pilot site for the new national ‘clean your hands’ campaign, which extends this initiative beyond hospital walls.

We have all heard about MRSA. It is a bacteria that normally lives harmlessly in the nose or on the skin of around 5% of the human population and is spread by direct person-to-person contact, or indirectly via equipment and the environment.

C. Difficile is another major cause. It can be found in low numbers in less than 5% of the healthy adult population and is kept in check by “good” bacteria in the intestine.

Norovirus is the most common cause of infectious gastroenteritis – or diarrhoea and vomiting. It affects all age groups and is transmitted by contaminated food or water and by person-to-person contact.

Strong progress is being made. A recent Health Protection Agency annual report on MRSA suggests a 30% drop in the number of cases in Herefordshire - to 14 cases per 100,000 bed days in 2007-08.

In the case of C. difficile, infection rates for patients aged 65 and over suggests a 47% drop in Herefordshire (which compares well with the 8% fall in England overall).

To conclude, infection prevention and control is everyone’s business and can I take this opportunity to remind patients and visitors of their responsibilities to clean their hands, to be understanding of the need not to overuse antibiotics as this encourages resistance to them, and to avoid visiting the hospital when advised not to by NHS staff or if they are unwell, or have been unwell in the past 48 hours, with diarrhoea and vomiting.

DR AKEEM ALI, Director of Public Health, Herefordshire.