£300K boost for Superbug fight

It is part of the ongoing war waged by Mid Staffordshire General Hospitals NHS Trust against potentially fatal bugs such as MRSA and clostridium difficile (C.diff).

Some of the money will be used to create four new single side rooms, costing a total of £120,000, to isolate patients with such infections.

Twenty more sinks where patients, visitors and staff can wash their hands are to be installed in clinical areas around the two hospitals.

Specialist equipment to steam clean surgical instruments and two further disinfecting washers are also to be purchased.

More than £22,000 is to be spent on 220 bed curtains so that they can be changed more often, particularly near to beds that have been used by patients with infections. Director of nursing and governance Helen Moss said the trust had been awarded the grant by the Department of Health.

She said: "The new investment means that we can add substantially to our resources to fight infection in our hospitals.

"We are delighted to have won this £300,000 allocation, which will go a long way towards the facilities and equipment we need to sustain and intensify our infection prevention and control measures."

She said the trust's "relentless campaign" against infection had brought down MRSA and C.diff rates in recent months. During the last year the number of cases of MRSA, in which the infection reached the bloodstream, at the trust's hospitals has almost halved.

During 2005-06 there were a total of 26 cases, compared to 13 from April 2006 to January 2007.

She said: "While the number of C.diff cases is heading for a total increase for the year, over the last few months there has been a reduction in numbers."

There were 104 cases recorded from April to June 2006, 83 cases from July to September and 70 from October to December.

The trust has introduced a raft of initiatives in the battle to prevent and control infection.

By Wyn Matthews