Hospitals: Listeria

Lord Patel Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I am sure that the noble Baroness would like to hear exactly how effectively Public Health England and others responded in this case. Obviously, these cases should not have occurred in the first place, but the first case occurred on 26 April. There were two cases in one hospital. The second case in a different hospital did not occur until 16 May. It took one week for Public Health England to ascertain that this was a national issue and that the cases were indeed linked. Thereafter, products were withdrawn. Very swift action was taken by Public Health England and the Food Standards Authority and a clear and concerted investigation is now under way. It will be made clear that this sort of thing cannot happen again and that there will be severe consequences for any companies that do not take careful consideration of the consequences if they do.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, several important points come out of this tragic incident of five people dying from listeria infections. The first is how quickly we can get a diagnosis of listeria in the food products that are contaminated. Older tests take several days but there are other tests, so I ask the Minister whether rapid diagnosis tests are available. Secondly, if people are infected with listeria monocytogenes it is quite dangerous, so the death of the people concerned may be related to that infection. It is important that the food in the supply chain is tested. Some countries adopt a regulation that requires regular testing of food in the environment where food such as sandwiches is packaged. In the review that will be conducted, will we look at the possibility of such regulation?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel. He is absolutely right that one reason why such fast action was able to be taken was that it was possible to confirm by whole genome sequencing that cases at Manchester and Liverpool were linked by an identical strain in a week. Previously, that would have taken an awful lot longer, so we can be pleased that action was taken much quicker.

In terms of lessons learned, the noble Lord is right that we need to look at how to ensure that local authorities undertake inspections and audits of sites that are approved and that we also collect samples every six months and take action on any results of concern. We must make sure that the NHS follows food safety advice from Public Health England and the Food Standards Authority. Public Health England has confirmed that serving sandwiches in hospitals—I apologise. I am going to faint.