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116 die in London NHS trust after catching superbugs
Amy Iggulden, Health Correspondent1 Nov 2007
The scandal of patients dying from superbugs in a major London hospital is exposed today.
The Standard can reveal that 116 people died at St George's Healthcare Trust, Tooting, after contracting MRSA or Clostridium difficile in less than three years.
At least 46 patients died as a direct result of the superbugs and they were a contributing factor in another 70 deaths. It is the first evidence of the numbers of patients dying in London hospitals from infections that can be beaten by good hygiene.
The figures, obtained under the freedom of information act, are released weeks after the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells scandal where 90 patients died of the stomach bug C.diff. In total 95 patients died in the south London healthcare trust after contracting C.diff and 21 after contracting MRSA.
C.diff hit more than 2,230 London patients between April and June. Figures from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) show for the first time that the infection is affecting hundreds of under 65s - 466 patients aged between two and 64 were hit in the three months.
Campaigners claim the situation is spiralling out of control and warned patients to protect themselves against dirty hospitals. But health bosses say they are winning the battle to bring infection rates down.
Across London the number of C.diff cases in over 65s fell slightly compared to last year, from over 1,960 to 1,770. MRSA rates have also fallen across the city to 237 between April and June compared with more than 300 last year. Yet the rate of infection is still higher than the national average.
Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust and Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich still have the worst C.diff rates in the city despite more than halving infections to 113 and 32 compared with the same quarter last year.
The HPA measures infections every three months but no one collects data on the number of patients dying of MRSA and C.diff in each hospital.
Mark Clarke, prospective Tory parliamentary candidate in Tooting, who obtained death figures for St George's, said: "How can hospitals claim to have a grip on this problem if they do not even know the scale of deaths caused by hospital infections."
St George's was recently criticised by the Healthcare Commission for failing to meet hygiene standards. Trust chief executive David Astley said today that infection rates had come down and that it is now second best in the country for MRSA. But it had 116 C.diff infections in over-65s between April and June, up from 76 in 2006.
He said: "Each case of a hospital acquired infection is a serious incident but to put these numbers into context, last year the trust treated 64,000 inpatients."
The city health authority NHS London has ordered all London trusts to report deaths from MRSA and C.diff as a "serious untoward incident".
Today's figures also show:
• Barts and the London NHS Trust had the highest number of C.diff cases in under 65s - 67 between April and June. The trust said it had halved rates since then.
• The lowest rate was at Lewisham Hospital, with one C.diff patient between two and 64 in the quarter.
• C.diff cases almost doubled at North West London Hospitals Trust between the first two quarters of the year, to 114.
• London has the largest number of MRSA infections but has also seen the biggest drops.
Reader views (4)
Maybe attention should be given to the target culture in which hospitals operate.
St George's was set targets to reduce its MRSA rates and it has acheived the reduction - to the point where its MRSA figures are ther second best in the country (after Guy's and St Thomas's).
Perhaps one factor in the development of the problems with C. difficile was that the institutional focus was on MRSA, as directed by government targets.
It is hardly valid to blame hospital staff for not paying attention to one issue when they were working flat out to ensure another was dealt with - as they had been told to do.
Perhaps those who set targets for hospitals should think more carefully about how their directives narrow the focus of management and staff, allowing unexpected problems such as this to develop.
- Andrew Sutcliffe, Bermondsey, London, 01/11/2007 15:13
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This angers me a great deal. My mother has just been in hospital, and a fair percentage of the anxiety related to an elderly lady receiving the right treatment, was compounded by the thought that, however slight the risk, there was a chance that her entering the hospital would/could actually kill her, in itself.
So saying that, she received what can only be termed 'adequate' care within the hospital, not helped by under-staffing, with nurses run ragged, trying their best to make headway against an extraordinary workload.
There seems to be a rather elementary equation not being fully comprehended here. How are hospitals supposed to maintain basic levels of hygiene if they are under-funded? I think it is surely a given that every hospital in the UK would aspire to having none, not one, case of a patient catching one of these super-bugs were it possible. To demand of under-staffed, under-funded hospitals to do better, is like asking for more water, after having cut off the water supply. Why the general public aren't up in arms demanding more funding for our so-called public health services I have no idea. We seem to be a nation of citizens happy to be enthralled by the brow-beating of specific hospitals isolated for some tough treatment, when in fact the picture is far bigger than this.
- Ami Clarke, London, 01/11/2007 13:54
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It would be interesting to see the figures for hospital acquired infections before cleaning was outsourced.
That way we could make a comparison and see if contracting out the services had any effect.
My guess is that it has.
- Mike Squires, Balham, London, UK, 01/11/2007 12:50
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The figures obtained under Freedom of Information are extremely intersting. This again demonstrates the under reporting of both infections and the failure to properly complete the Medical Certification of Cause of Death. Government statements reveal a complacency in that figures are falling. These figures relate to people, someone's relative - mother, father etc. and the constant remarks that these are mostly frail and elderly patients are an inditement of OUR health service. At least a third of these infections are preventable but hygiene and cleanliness are constantly sacrificed for economic expediency. Everyone seems to have forgotten the drive to reduce budgets, no implications for patients was the Government response. The failure to protect patient safety is the price we now pay. All patients expect is good treatment delivered in a clean and safe environment.
- Graham Tanner, Bristol, England, 01/11/2007 11:47
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