Hospitals winning the war against superbug invasion

While the Scottish Government has announced plans to spend more money on tackling potentially lethal hospital-acquired infections, medical staff have already been working hard to eradicate superbugs from our wards.

AT a time when patients are vulnerable because they have just been diagnosed with a serious illness, the last thing they should be doing is fretting. They need to have complete trust in the hospital where they are being treated and in the people delivering that care.

But one of the things that is causing patients great concern is the fear that their recovery could be hampered because their admission to hospital might lead to them contracting a life-threatening superbug infection.

In the Lothians, health bosses will tell you that the number of cases of the antibiotic resistant bugs MRSA and Clostridium Difficile (C-Diff) remain relatively stable.

Indeed, figures published by the NHS show that cases of MRSA in the Lothians fell from 234 in 2005/06 to 201 in the following financial year.

However, what is also clear is that the problem is not diminishing either and in 2006/07 more than 1400 cases of the C-Diff bug were recorded in the Lothians.

Despite prolific and expensive awareness campaigns and the introduction of novel ways to encourage people to wash their hands, the problem prevails. Last year, following the announcement of dedicated government cash across Scotland, NHS Lothian embarked on a number of trials and new initiatives.

A hand-hygiene co-ordinator was appointed to take charge and, on some wards, "speech pods" with recorded messages urging people to wash their hands were tested, as were ultra-violet light boxes to check washed hands for missed bacteria.

Then just this week, after declaring that hospital-acquired infections were "a major threat to public health and patient safety", Nicola Sturgeon, pictured below, announced £1.25 million would be spent on tackling antibiotic resistance.

Part of the cash will be used to improve laboratory equipment and standardise monitoring of superbugs across Scotland.

But will giving Scotland's laboratories the best technology to spot superbugs and analyse their behaviour really make such a big difference in the fight against their eradication?

Dr Anne Eastaway, a consultant microbiologist with Health Protection Scotland – the body charged with co-ordinating and monitoring infection control in Scotland – believes the investment is a real step forward.

In simple terms, she says it will mean that, when an outbreak of a superbug occurs, it can be spotted speedily so action can be taken to halt its spread.

"From my perspective, this is one of the most exciting developments of this programme," she says. "It's recognition that we need to properly resource our labs so they can provide this information at a local and national level.

"By having a standard approach across Scotland, we can better understand what's going on.

"Historically, different labs used different methodology for their testing, which is good enough for managing individual patients' tests but made it difficult to compare, say, what's happening in Aberdeen to what's happening in the Borders.

"The sooner we pick up on something new or unexpected, the sooner we can intervene in trying to prevent it before it gets a hold and spreads to the population."

When Ms Sturgeon said antibiotic resistance posed a major threat, she wasn't dramatising – Health Protection Scotland states that healthcare-associated infections affect nine per cent of those admitted to hospital each year.

So another part of the Scottish Government action plan announced this week is the intention to stamp out the unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics.

This is because their overuse has resulted in some bacteria, like MRSA for example, becoming resistant to antibiotic treatments.

MRSA is not just found in our hospitals – it is carried by around one in four people and normally does no harm, that is until it infects a wound, say in someone with a weak immune system who has had an operation and is recovering in hospital, and therefore becomes difficult to treat.

This is why it is important that not only hospital staff but also visitors take care not to inadvertently spread the superbugs they might be carrying and use the hand gels that are now provided in our hospitals.

The watchdog NHS Quality Improvement Scotland also published research which found that routine MRSA testing of patients on admission to hospital was a good idea.

If found to be carrying the bug, the patient could then be treated before their health resulted in them becoming more susceptible to serious infection.

The frail are also susceptible – statistics showed that more than 6000 pensioners in Scotland contracted C-Diff last year – so there have also been calls for more to be done to target vulnerable groups such as the elderly.

It is clear that there is no simple solution to tackling antibiotic resistance and the problems it causes but, as any patient who has contracted a bug will say, any measures taken to potentially halt its spread are to be welcomed.