Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to incentivise NHS trusts to reduce levels of healthcare-associated infections.

The NHS Standard Contract is a key enabler for commissioners to secure improvements in the quality of services for patients and to hold providers of National Health Service funded care to account.

Each provider is required to have a healthcare associated infections reduction plan for each contract year (and to comply with its obligations under that plan) that must reflect local and national priorities relating to healthcare associated infections, including antimicrobial resistance. Under the NHS Standard Contract, commissioners may impose financial sanctions where providers fail to achieve healthcare associated infections reduction targets. These are set out at:

http://www.england.nhs.uk/nhs-standard-contract/

These robust measures have played their part in reducing annual Meticillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections by 59% and Clostridium difficile infections by 45% since May 2010.