Steve Brine has welcomed the findings of Winchester hospital's annual Infection Control report, released Monday 8th November.
Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust’s Infection Prevention and Control team have hit their targets, and the report declares that strict protocols and strong teamwork are behind the declining number of cases of infection.
Winchester and Chandler’s Ford MP Steve Brine said: "This is good news, well done to all the staff at our hospital. Any infection in a hospital is one too many and I share the ambition to eradicate them altogether but these figures are encouraging and prove that the RHCH continues to be a first-class District General Hospital, very often leading the way when it comes to best practice in infection control."
The infection prevention and control 2009/10 report, which was presented to the Trust Board last week, shows that the number of MRSA bloodstream infections and cases of Clostridium difficile were well below the accepted tolerance levels.
In 2009/10 the Trust achievement was below the tolerance level of eight cases of MRSA bloodstream infections. Six were reported but out of these, just three being hospital acquired.
The mandatory tolerance level for cases of Clostridium difficile was 111 for 2009 –10 and a significant reduction was achieved with 32 case of hospital acquired infection being recorded. This was a 48% reduction on the previous year. The good work on keeping this number low continues. The Trust’s target for this year is 46 cases and so far there have only been 12. The changes made early in 2009 have continued to have a major impact on preventing patients acquiring C diff. These include environmental cleaning with chlorine and increased cleaning regimes after each case, prudent use of antibiotics to reduce the risk of patients being susceptible to C diff and prompt isolation on a specially refurbished ward have also led to a reduction in the spread of infection to other patients.
As well as MRSA and C diff the Trust’s Infection Prevention and Control team and clinicians are faced with the seasonal problem of Norovirus, also called the winter vomiting bug. Last winter the country had its highest ever number of cases of Norovirus which affected schools, nursing and residential homes as well as many hospitals.
Hospital visitors are among those who become infected and so a restriction was placed around visiting and the importance of hand washing was raised through the use of posters, leaflets and automatic speakers which remind people to wash their hands when they are entering clinical areas.
Pictured; Steve joins a member of staff on a recent visit to RHCH
