raising public awareness - campaigning for safer standards
supporting sufferers and dependants

Telephone: 01606 559748
email: INFO@MRSAACTIONUK.NET

September 2008 Newsletter

Welcome to the summary of September's Newsletter.

Party conference time

This years party conferences began with the Liberal Democrats Conference in Bournemouth.  Liz Lynne MEP, invited us to speak to hear the patient's perspective in relation to healthcare infections in our hospitals.  They wanted to hear what our proposals are to help to eradicate as far as is practicable, all avoidable healthcare infections from our hospitals.  We followed all the Party Conferences and took the opportunity to publish our manifesto outlining the scale of the problem and asking the government to make pledges to invest further in measures to bring performance to a level equivalent with our Northern European neighbours.  Click here to download a copy.

We had a lot of contact with the press this month and took the opportunity to challenge some of the claims of the government in respect to meeting the target to reduce MRSA by half the level of that in 2004, the figure had not reduced by half, and it must be remembered that the MRSA bacteraemias account for only 6% of all MRSA infections.  We highlighted the disparity around the country pointing out the postcode lottery.  Although challenged by the Department of Health we found that the following week the Liberal Democrats highlighted the same disparities in the press, no further comment was received from the Department of Health as they were unable to refute our figures, which were taken from the Health Protection Agency's publication.

Death certification reform

We have responded to the Consultation on Death Certification and the Charter for bereaved people.  As outlined last month we are asking that people who come forward requesting a review of case notes can have death certificates changed where it is proven that it was likely that MRSA or another infection contributed to a person's death.  It will be possible with the new legislation for people to call in the Coroner personally if they believe other agencies, for example a hospital or other institution, have failed to carry out this responsibility.  A copy of the Charter and our response will be placed on our website once we have received a response from the Constitutional Affairs Committee.  We will publish more details in next month's newsletter.

E-petition for nurses uniforms

If you wish to sign the e-petition calling for legislation making it compulsory for nurses to change out of uniforms at the end of the working shift visit
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/nhs-uniforms/

We would like to thank our members and our sponsors for their continuing support.  A full copy of the newsletter is available to members, click here if you would like to join
MRSA Action UK.

Lord Naren Patel

We have also been asked for help from various Organisations, the first such request was from Lord Naren Patel for Presentation to the House of Lords. Lord Patel is an Obstetrician of International standing. Lord Patel specializes in the care of mothers in high risk pregnancy, and is Chair of the National Patients Safety Agency.

Lord Patel contacted our Chair on the 11^th July to inform him that he was raising the question in the House of Lords as to the continuing high levels of Healthcare Infections in our hospitals. Lord Patel presented information from MRSA Action UK calling for a Public Inquiry into the reasons for the continuing mortality and morbidity caused by Healthcare Associated Infections and the need for a National Policy on the eradication of MRSA. Lord Patel cited Edwina Currie's article in the Daily Mail "How Dare we let our dirty hospitals kill 8,000 a year?"  when giving his presentation to the Lords.

Chief Medical Officers Annual Report

On the 14^th July the Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson released his Annual Report where he made reference to vaccines being available to combat MRSA and C-diff. However he did mention in his report that these vaccines would not be available for some 5 to 10 years at the earliest. Our Charity was contacted at 6:30am by LBC Radio of London to give an interview on the publication of the report later that day. The radio station had obtained the information prior to the release and wanted our Charity's views on the possibility of these vaccines being made available to combat MRSA and C-diff.  The interview was to be broadcast at 7:00am and our Chair gave the interview stating that whilst these vaccines may help in the fight against these bacteria, they were 5 to 10 years away and that this would not help the situation at present or even into the near future. He also said that we must remember that we have relied on the use of drugs over the last 40 years to fight infections after people have contracted them and that the best policy that can or should be pursued, is one of avoiding infections being contracted in the first place.

Our President Professor Hugh Pennington gave an interview on this subject of a vaccine for MRSA and C-diff where he was asked if he thought that what Sir Liam Donaldson had said about the availability and use of a vaccine to combat these infections was realistic. Professor Pennington said that he feared not. He said that it would be really super if it was true, but that these bugs are really clever and that it would need a major scientific breakthrough to get these vaccines working. He explained that the bacterium especially MRSA has been very good at evolving over a very long time and that new strains are appearing which are nastier and becoming more difficult to treat. Professor Pennington said that even if we get these vaccines, we can't sort of sit back and say "that is the end of the problem", because the bacterium may win over the vaccines and we haven't got the vaccines yet, and there is still a long way to go before we do.

Professor Pennington said that we still need to keep on using the techniques that we know work because although we are beginning to bring these infection rates down, we are a long way from winning this battle but it is going in the right direction. This war has only just started and we have to keep the pressure on these bugs if we are to win. He said we have to focus on good hygiene and hand washing in the hospitals and if we do that we can knock these bugs back.

The Professor was asked what about investing in developing better antibiotics that respond to these bugs more strongly. He responded by saying that yes, this has always been one of the issues to fight these bacterium, the problem he said was that we have run out of easy targets to hit these bugs with. He said we know their soft spots and we have knocked off most of those and he said that we are really going to need some really good scientific break through.  With C-diff it is not so much of a problem because it is the over use of antibiotics that has caused this problem with C-diff, it is just a matter of controlling antibiotic use and making it more rational which we have been working on for quite sometime. With MRSA, Professor Pennington said, we do have one or two extra antibiotics to knock this one off. We must remember that we can still treat most MRSA but the bottom line, he said, in the answer to infections is prevention, lets not have them in the first place so that we don't have to worry about then treating them.

We would like to thank Professor Pennington for doing the interview with the radio station as President of our Charity.

Health Select Committee Announcement of an Inquiry in to patient safety

On the 17th July Kevin Barron the Chair of the Health Select Committee announced that the Committee has decided it will undertake an inquiry into patient safety.

Our Charity has invited to submit written evidence to the Health Select Committee's Inquiry in to Patient Safety. We have informed the Committee that we intend to submit this written evidence by the deadline of the 22nd September.  Anyone wishing to submit their case as evidence please contact the Chair.

New Members

We would like to welcome our new members and to thank those of you who have kindly and generously donated to our Charity.  

Memorial Page

If any of you would like your Loved One's favourite photo, verse and music to be placed on our Memorial Page, please contact our Secretary Maria.
To all those who have anniversaries our thoughts are with you, if you would like a tribute to your loved one in the Newsletter then please contact Sam.

• Department of Health Stakeholder meeting on the 30^th July 2008
• Healthcare Commission expert reference group meeting on the 5^th August 2008
• Master Class conference 11th-12th September 2008
• Improvement foundation Conference North Tees 13^th October 2008
• Westinghouse Safety Conference 15^th October 2008
• Surgical wound site Conference Manchester 12^th November 2008