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£7m drive to screen patients for superbug



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Published Date: 27 March 2008
By LYNDSAY MOSS
HEALTH CORRESPONDENT
ALMOST one million people across Scotland are set to benefit from a pilot programme to screen patients for MRSA, the health secretary announced yesterday.
Nicola Sturgeon said NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Grampian and NHS Western Isles had been chosen as "pathfinder" health boards to test the screening of everyone coming to hospital in a bid to cut MRSA infections.

The health boards will now spend the next couple of months preparing to start the screening programme before the first patients are tested.

If successful, the £7 million pilot programme will lead to screening programmes being introduced in every health board from 2009-10. It comes after research suggested MRSA screening was not effective in cutting hospital-acquired infections.

Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament: "The pilots will be an exhaustive test of the screening model and will ensure any necessary adjustments can be made before the programme is rolled out across Scotland."

She also announced a £90,000 investment to allow the Care Commission to recruit a nurse consultant for infection prevention and control.





The full article contains 182 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 26 March 2008 9:54 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Hospital superbugs
 
1

Guga II,

Rockall 27/03/2008 15:31:09
This is all well and good, but are they also going to screen hospital staff, particularly those involved in any form of patient care? It is not just patients that are liable to be carriers of MRSA.

In addition, when are they going to prevent doctors wearing their street clothes when on duty, and prevent nurses from wearing their uniforms when outside of the hospital?
2

John Blackley,

Florida 27/03/2008 17:09:44
I'll admit I'm no clinician but I think the delightful Nicola and friends may have got this the wrong way 'round.

Is it their stance that MRSA infections are caused by people bringing them into hospitals?

Shouldn't we be screening for MRSA when patients are leaving hospital?
3

linda mccafferty,

Glasgow 27/03/2008 20:25:19
I would agree that patients need to be screened entering hospital & leaving hospital , this would then stop accusations of the general public bringing MRSA into hospital .i think the research is true that screening would not be effective on cutting HAIs .
4

Upbeat,

15/05/2008 12:21:26
There was a wonderful piece of film last night on the BBC in relation to this issue.

A Hospital 'cleanliness matron' was observed checking the cleanliness of a ward.

She did this by raising a mattress and running her hand along the bedframe, she reached into the back of cupboards and ran her hand along the inside recesses of storage spaces, she then shoved a drip stand out of her way - grabbing it with the same hand, she then moved over to a patient, and, if I was not mistaken, passed a cup across to her....with the same hand.

Now if the ward was clean in the first place this might have been acceptable behaviour...(and it is always possible the film had been edited out of sequence.) But surely checking the cleanliness of any surface should be done with a clean tissue or cloth, and having done this the cloth should be disposed of correctly , then hands should be cleaned again before touching other equipment etc.

Did that ' matron' consider how, if the first object she touched was not as clean as it should have been , she was then responsible for spreading that dirt, fungus, infectious material or substance onto everything she touched subsequently ?

 

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