Hospitals: Infectious Diseases

(asked on 7th September 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce rates of hospital-acquired infections.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 17th September 2018

Patient safety remains a priority for the Department. In 2015, the Department strengthened the Code of Practice on the prevention and control of infection and related guidance (The Code), linked to the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to continue to encourage registered providers to adhere to a code to prevent and control the spread of infections in health-care settings. Under these, National Health Service providers and independent providers are required to have a surveillance programme and an audit programme in place, making information on the performance of hospitals, including rates of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia, methicillin susceptible S. aureus bacteraemia, Escherichia coli bacteraemia, and Clostridium difficile infection available, allowing trends to be identified and targets to be put in place.

The United Kingdom Government’s strategy to tackle antimicrobial resistance highlights the importance of good antibiotic stewardship and effective infection prevention and control. Public Health England, NHS Improvement, and NHS England are collaborating to support health systems to implement improvements across the health and social care sector.

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