Clean hospital programme should be prosecuted under trade description act

Liberal Democrat Health Spokesman Paul Burstow MP today revealed new research that shows that out of the 40 hospitals with the most MRSA or Superbug cases, not one of the hospitals was classed as a dirty hospital under the Governments Clean Hospital Programme which Ministers championed as tackling the crisis.

The analysis undertaken by Paul Burstow looked at the 20 specialist and 20 acute hospitals with the highest rates of infection of MRSA. He found that 28 hospitals were classified as 'green' and 12 as 'amber' despite having the highest rates of infection in England. There were none classified as red or failing.

Ministers championed the Clean Hospital Programme as the way that they are tackling the Superbug crisis in hospitals. However, out of 19 targets, only one relates to ward cleanliness and none relate to the prevention and spread of infection.

Paul Burstow MP said:-

"The clean hospital programme should be prosecuted under the trade description act. It is nothing of the sort. It is giving patients and families a false sense of security that the Government is on top of the Superbug problem when Ministers have not even begun to tackle the virus."

"The clean hospital programme covers 19 different standards of which only one is about cleanliness and none are about the control of infection. Ministers must stop peddling the idea that they are on top of this problem and acknowledge the human cost of their failure.

ENDS

Notes to editors

• Both John Hutton and Alan Milburn have cited the Clean Hospital Programme as the answer to tackling MRSA infections:-

3 Dec 2002 : Column 738

Hospital-acquired Infections

4. Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South): If he will make a statement on the incidence of hospital-acquired infections in the last 12 months. [82619]

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): Since April 2001, all acute NHS trusts have had to report methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus blood stream infections. The first year's data show that rates tend to be higher in specialist trusts and in the south and east of the country. Early next year, surveillance will be extended to other micro-organisms and adverse incidents associated with infection.

Richard Ottaway : Up to 5,000 lives are lost each year through hospital-acquired infections. Are not the Government being extraordinarily complacent about the matter? The figure is almost double the number of lives lost on the roads each year. Does not that show that all the spending announcements in the world do not add up to a row of beans if lives continue to be lost through inefficient procurement programmes of sterilisation and contamination equipment? They have been getting progressively slower. The Government should get a grip and act to improve matters.

Mr. Hutton: I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is a serious problem. We should tackle it on three different levels. First, it is important that we start to monitor the rates of MRSA and other hospital-acquired infections; we are doing that for the first time this year. No previous Health Minister-Tory or Labour-has been able to tell the House what the rates of such infections are. That is our first port of call. Secondly, we need to get in additional resources to improve standards of cleanliness and hygiene in our hospitals. We are doing that: there will be £62 million for the clean hospital programme and a £200 million additional investment to improve sterilisation.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that this is not just about money. That is why the third strand of our work involves the chief medical officer and others working with the service to improve levels of performance and to spread best practice in regard to hygiene and cleanliness. That is the right way to do this. There is a problem, but we are trying to address it.

• Extract taken from Paul Burstow report 'Now Wash Your Hands' that looked at the crisis in tackling MRSA. In it he cited the following which included a quote from Mr Milburn

6.1 In autumn 2000, all NHS Trusts were inspected by Patient Environment Action Teams (PEAT), made up of volunteers both from within the NHS and from patient groups. This was heralded as an inspection of hospital "cleanliness" after a media furore over healthcare acquired infections. It was called the "Clean Hospitals Programme".

6.2 The trusts were graded on a "traffic light" system of red (poor), yellow (acceptable) and green (excellent). The results of the inspections were not published, but were leaked to The Times in January 2001. 253 hospitals were in the red category, prompting the headline "One in Three Hospital Wards 'Filthy'". The inspections were repeated in spring and autumn 2001, with only 42 red hospitals in the spring, and none in the autumn. This was heralded by the Department of Health as a "huge improvement". When the autumn results were published in October last year, Alan Milburn said

"The cleaning campaign in England's hospitals is working. In April I announced national standards for hospital cleaning and that by Autumn no hospital would have poor standards of cleanliness. We have got there".

Department of Health press release reference 2001/0505, 31st October 2001.

• The figures were taken from the clean hospital programme and the PHLS, the now HPA:-

http://patientexperience.nhsestates.gov.uk/clean_hospitals/ch_content/national_results/results_search.asp

http://www.phls.co.uk/publications/cdr/PDFfiles/2002/MRSA2502.pdf

Specialist Trust National Ranking according to Trust category MRSA per 1000 bed days National Cleaning Results

University Hospital Birmingham 1 0.66 Green

Royal Free Hampstead 2 0.41 Amber

South Tees Hospitals 3 0.38 Green

St George's Healthcare 4 0.36 Amber

St Mary's 5 0.34 Green

University College London 6 0.33 Green

Portsmouth Hospitals 7 0.32 Green

Plymouth Hospitals 8 0.32 Green

Guy's & St Thomas 9 0.32 Amber

North Bristol 10 0.32 Green

Kings College Hospital 11 0.31 Green

North Staffordshire 12 0.3 Green

United Bristol Healthcare 13 0.29 Green

Ashford & St Peters 14 0.29 Green

Hammersmith Hospitals 15 0.28 Amber

Addenbrooke's Hospitals 16 0.27 Green

Chelsea & Westminster 17 0.27 Amber

Hull & East Yorkshire 18 0.26 Green

University Hospitals of Leicester 19 0.26 Green

Nottingham City 20 0.25 Green

Totals

Amber 5

Green 15

General Acute Trust National Ranking according to Trust category MRSA per 1000 bed days National Cleaning Results

North Middlesex Hospitals 1 0.39 Green

Ealing Hospitals 2 0.33 Amber

Lewisham Hospitals 3 0.3 Green

Basildon & Thurrock 4 0.3 Amber

Frimley Park 5 0.29 Amber

West Hertfordshire 6 0.28 Amber

Norfolk & Norwich 7 0.27 Green

Weston Area 8 0.27 Amber

Preston Acute Hospitals 9 0.27 Green

City Hospital 10 0.25 Amber

Royal United Hospital Bath 11 0.24 Green

James Paget Healthcare 12 0.24 Green

Epsom & St Helier 13 0.24 Green

West Middlesex 14 0.24 Green

Salford Royal Hospitals 15 0.24 Green

Countess of Chester Hospital 16 0.23 Green

North Manchester Healthcare 17 0.23 Green

Burton Hospitals 18 0.23 Green

Queen Mary's Sidcup 19 0.22 Amber

Sherwood Forest Hospitals 20 0.22 Green

Totals

Amber 7

Green 13