Hospitals: Pseudomonas

(asked on 1st September 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of people who have contracted Pseudomonas whilst staying in hospital in each of the last 10 years for which data is available.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 8th September 2023

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) advises in preventing outbreak of infections such as pseudomonas in hospitals to the Department, National Health Service national, regional, and local teams, including commissioners and providers. This is done through collecting and publishing data and supporting in development and updating of Infection Prevention Control (IPC) guidance, as well as providing independent IPC, decontamination, and epidemiology expertise. This also includes provision of subject matter and health protection experts such as Consultants in Public Health Medicine who can assist healthcare providers in the control of protracted and difficult outbreaks and can offer peer support visits, and specialist and reference microbiology services accessible to all healthcare providers in the United Kingdom.

UKHSA runs surveillance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bloodstream infections and publishes case numbers by trust and onset setting, monthly, quarterly, and annually. UKHSA also produces a quarterly epidemiological commentary which presents trends in Gram-negative bacteraemia (including P. aeruginosa) over time.

UKHSA publishes data on Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteraemia on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. This includes epidemiological commentaries, which explain the data and put the results in context. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mrsa-mssa-and-e-coli-bacteraemia-and-c-difficile-infection-annual-epidemiological-commentary/annual-epidemiological-commentary-gram-negative-mrsa-mssa-bacteraemia-and-c-difficile-infections-up-to-and-including-financial-year-2021-to-2022

The following table shows the number of hospital onset cases of P. aeruginosa since mandatory surveillance began in 2017/18.

Financial year

All reported cases

Hospital onset cases

2017/2018

4,308

1,626

2018/2019

4,186

1,518

2019/2020

4,345

1,581

2020/2021

4,291

1,670

2021/2022

4,334

1,626

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