Glasgow North Labour Party

SNP ‘cop-out’ of tough targets to combat infections in hospitals

February 22nd, 2009 | by Site Admin |

Politicians on all sides of the Scottish Parliament have told the SNP Government to implement Labour’s action plan (outlined below) for tackling hospital associated infections, now.

Speaking in a debate in the Scottish Parliament, Glasgow North Labour’s Patricia Ferguson MSP for Maryhill, welcomed the plan devised by Labour with of two of the UK’s leading experts in patient safety and infection control, Professors Hugh Pennington and Brian Toft. Commenting on the proposals Patricia said:

“Much has been done in recent years to tackle health care acquired infections but, if we are really serious about it, we have to adopt the 15-point plan and be flexible in the years ahead. Only through having a comprehensive plan for prevention and treatment will we ever be able to tackle the problem properly.

 ”Reducing the number of cases of health care acquired infection needs to be our next big crusade. It should unite the chamber, not divide it. It should be tackled with the determination that previous generations brought to their efforts to control the spread of tuberculosis.”

Meanwhile, in the Scottish Parliament, The SNP Government backed away from this vital challenge.  Scottish Labour MSPs have been pushing them to set a tough target to ensure that we are aiming towards eradication.  On the casting vote of the Presiding Officer Labour’s motion which supported the action plan and a target to reduce Clostridium difficile in hospitals by 50% by March 2011 compared with the current target of 30%, and called on the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing to implement the plan alongside other measures to combat healthcare associated infections was defeated.

Labour’s 15 Point Plan To Stop Hospital Associated Infections is urgently required to make a serious impact on this serious problem.

1. Introduce a robust monitoring system for the implementation of guidance at a Board and hospital level is required. This should be subject to rigorous checks by inspection teams, independent of government, undertaking unannounced visits and not relying on a system of self-assessment.
2. An HAl Commissioner – to develop best practice and to co-ordinate and bring a sharper focus to the institutional clutter of those agencies responsible for tackling HAls.
3. Crash programme to provide isolation facilities for all CDAD/MRSA patients. This is the provision of en-suite single rooms in sufficient number to end sharing. The Scottish Government needs to outline the timescale and resources for this to be achieved across the NHS
4. Crash programme to provide quality hand-washing facilities (specifically temperature-controlled, sensor-operated, flow-regulated taps) appropriately positioned in all wards.
5. Real time detailed analyses at ward level, (with high resolution fingerprinting of the causative microbes) is essential in tracking the spread of infection and for outbreak identification and control.
6. Monthly reporting, on a hospital by hospital basis, must be published and available centrally online for every hospital. Quarterly reporting by HPS of Scotland wide statistics would continue.
7. Budget to ensure that staffing numbers in key posts – control of infection nurse, scientist/microbiologist and cleaning staff posts meet national guidelines. Antimicrobial pharmacists should be deployed in every hospital and a central contingency fund should be established to ensure cover for any staff shortages.
8. Urgent need for workforce planning. It is understood that there are currently no medically qualified academic bacteriologists to train future specialists or conduct research.
9. HEAT target to reduce the rate of clostridium difficile by 50% by March 2011.
10. Funding for the provision of surplus capacity of storage and washing facilities for soiled bedding and clothes at all hospitals in the event of an outbreak of C.diff.
11. Introduce sterile hygiene system for staff uniforms.
12. Facilities for steam cleaning of beds, curtains etc to be available in every hospital.
13. Budget for future increases in the levels of MRSA screening activity and the need for rapid turn-round times for tests with benefits both to the patients and to rapid infection control.
14. Funding for the Reference Laboratory should be increased to permit all isolates to be fingerprinted, and to develop typing systems which will identify new and potentially more virulent strains of C.diff.
15. A properly resourced reference laboratory should be established for Norovirus gastroenteritis, given its link to CDAD, in line with the MRSA and C.Difficile reference laboratories.

• Read more at the Scottish Labour website
• Labour wins support for plans to combat superbugs - The Scotsman