Streptococcus
(asked on 6th December 2016) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to introduce the gold-standard framework, developed by Dr Keri Thomas, for detecting group B streptococcus infection.
The Gold Standards Framework Centre that was developed by Dr Keri Thomas is a private, non-profit organisation that provides training to National Health Service and care home staff in improving the quality of end of life care. There is not an equivalent gold standard framework for detecting group B streptococcus (GBS) infection.
The Enriched Culture Medium (ECM) test is used for detecting GBS carriage at 35-37 weeks of pregnancy and is included in Public Health England’s UK Standards for Microbiology Investigations: Detection of Carriage of Group B Streptococci. In June 2015, Public Health England, in response to requests to introduce the ECM test into Public Health England laboratories, published an advisory position paper which sets out that within current accepted clinical guidelines, there are no indications for testing women using ECM methods. The position paper is available on the gov.uk website at:
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), the body which advises Ministers in all four United Kingdom countries on all aspects of screening, recommended in 2012 that antenatal screening for GBS carriage at 35 -37 weeks of pregnancy should not be offered because currently there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the benefits to be gained from screening would outweigh the harms. The UK NSC is currently reviewing its recommendation on antenatal screening for GBS carriage. A public consultation on the UK NSC’s review opened on 28 October 2016 and will close on 25 January 2017. A copy of the consultation is available at:
https://legacyscreening.phe.org.uk/groupbstreptococcus
A recommendation is expected from the UK NSC following its meeting in February 2017.