Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon, yesterday announced plans to begin testing patients within Scottish hospitals for the MRSA bug.
The groups deemed to be the most at risk and therefore priority are elderly people as well as those being treated for kidney disease, skin problems and having vascular surgery. The national screening programme will be rolled out over the following 12 months and comes after pilot programmes already trialled at three Scottish health boards. Psychiatric, obstetric and paediatric patients will not be screened however.
The plans are announced at a time when new statistics revealed a decrease in the amount of outbreaks of Clostridium difficile and MRSA in Scottish hospitals. In the last four months of 2008, there were as many as 1,299 incidents of C.difficile - 9 per cent less than in the previous quarter - and 19 per cent less in the same term in 2007. In total there were 157 cases of MRSA - 7 per cent more than the previous quarter but overall 24 per cent less than the same period in 2007.
Despite concern about how valid a national programme would be, the final decision to go ahead with it were made. A preliminary report on the pilot programmes confirms that as yet it is not known, “if universal MRSA screening was clinically [effective] and cost-effective in practice”.
From June last year patients going into these hospitals were tested for MRSA before they went in. If any patients were found to be infected, they underwent a five day treatment to ensure the bacteria did not enter their bloodstream or have the ability to infect other patients.
In the preliminary findings of the £3.7 million projects, Health Protection Scotland (HPS) suggested 7.5 per cent of patients who were tested were carrying MRSA skin without causing any danger to themselves. The figures increased to 20 per cent in elderly patients, and those being treated for kidney disease, skin problems or having vascular surgery.
Ms Sturgeon protested the governement’s intervention to tackle the problem of MRSAwas having successful results. “Screening allows us to reduce the number of people admitted to hospital with MRSA, minimising the risk of infections spreading,” she said.
However, opposition has come from the Liberal Democrats, as their health spokesman Ross Finnie, who felt Ms Sturgeon was proceeding with the project prematurely, regardless of the HPS’s reservations. “The interim report from HPS warns that more time is needed before experts can be sure that a national screening programme is clinically effective.”
He continued to say the findings highlighted the poor isolation facilities available in Scottish hospitals, with only 22 per cent of those needing treatment in isolation actually getting it.”The Health Secretary needs to explain why she is so confident that a national screening programme is the right course of action right now, or risk accusations that she jumped the gun for a quick headline.”
Meanwhile, Labour have detailed the fact that as Scottish statistics revealed a drop in hospital-acquired infections, as England enjoyed a 38 per reduction in recorded infections.
