Record number of patients catch infections in hospitals - Telegraph.
Recorded cases of patients with a “nosocomial condition” – any infection acquired in hospital or a medical environment – also rose by more than a third last year compared with the year before. A large proportion of the patients involved were aged over 75, the figures from the NHS Information Centre show. Illnesses related to such infections led to average stays in hospital last year of 31.1 days. Experts blamed poor hygiene for the dramatic rise in infections, including superbugs MRSA and Clostridium difficile (C. diff) as well as norovirus and E.coli. But the Department of Health dismissed the “misleading” figures, published online, saying that officials have “got better and better at tackling hospital infections”. According to the new figures, supplied by NHS hospitals, the number of patients found by consultants to have hospital-acquired infections rose last year reached a record 42,712.
