MRSA (Mersa, Staph) Questions

Private cleaners not the problem?

Link: NHS Fail To Meet Cleanliness Checks.

  Many English hospitals are failing to meet cleanliness standards, according to a shock report today. As many as two thirds of hospitals failed inspections by the the Healthcare Commission.

The findings are particularly damning as inspectors used unannounced spot checks to test claims that hospitals are getting cleaner. Official league tables are based on self-assessment.

Inspectors concluded that all but 33 hospitals had room for improvement. Some 100 hospitals were inspected.

Some of the worst offenders were psychiatric hospitals and private hospitals.

The investigation failed to find evidence that private contractors were to blame for poor cleanliness. Instead they pointed to overall working relationships, regardless of whether cleaners were employed in-house or not.

Cleaners fired after BBC show

Link: icSolihull

TWO cleaners have been sacked following a recent BBC Panorama programme revealing 'frightening' lapses in cleaning standards at Heartlands Hospital. The three star hospital, which with Solihull Hospital, makes up the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust was shown to break a number of routine rules designed to stop infections. A director at Heartlands Hospital said: "We can confirm that two of the cleaners highlighted in the Panorama programme have since been dismissed by Initial Hospital Services. Initial has assured us that any other staff who appeared in the programme have been disciplined as appropriate and thoroughly re-trained so they meet the high standards we expect here." The programme showed cleaners who the BBC described as "great at making things look clean - without actually cleaning them as they should." The programme makers said they witnessed: "cleaners who routinely break basic rules designed to stop infections spreading; and some medical staff who ignore isolation room procedures and risk spreading serious infection around their hospital."

Two hospital cleaners dismissed

Link: BBC NEWS

Two cleaners at a Birmingham hospital have been sacked after an investigation into poor standards of hygiene was prompted by a BBC documentary. An undercover Panorama reporter found basic rules, put in place to combat the spread of conditions like MRSA, were being broken at Heartlands Hospital. Cleaners were witnessed using a single bucket of water to clean a whole ward. The sacked pair are employed by Initial Hospital Services. Eight other cleaners have received warnings. Chief executive of Birmingham Heartlands and Solihull NHS Trust, Mark Goldman, told BBC WM: "Initial, who provide the cleaning services here at Heartlands Hospital, have been through a full disciplinary process.

BBC under fire for superbug stunt

Link: HEN News : Harlow Star

HOSPITAL bosses have criticised the BBC after volunteers armed with mops and dusters walked in unannounced as part of a new show aimed at highlighting the problem of MRSA. Ten people walked into Harlow's Princess Alexandra Hospital and nine other hospitals across the country for a BBC Three documentary on dirty hospitals and the prevalence of MRSA. The volunteers, who have all been affected by the superbug in some way, received training from infection control nurses before entering PAH with a TV crew with the intention of performing an impromptu clean-up. The hospitals were chosen as they were all deemed to be underachieving on MRSA by the Healthcare Commission. However, a PAH NHS Trust spokesman said they only got as far as the main corridor beyond the front entrance before they were challenged by PAH's real cleaners and walked out. Police were called to ensure they left.

Mop Brigade Protest Germ Grime

Link: EDP24 News.

A group of campaigners from Norfolk were part of a swoop on some of the country's hospitals in a bid to highlight MRSA. On Sunday, about 100 people who have been affected by MRSA, armed with mops and dusters, visited 10 hospitals from some of the country's worst-hit trusts. The impromptu clean-up was part of a BBC Three documentary to be shown this autumn raising awareness of dirty hospitals and the prevalence of MRSA. All took part to register their disgust at MRSA rates and the state of hospital cleanliness. Among them was Keith Hall, who set up a Norwich branch of MRSA Support after his wife Anne died in 2003 after contracting the condition in the Norfolk and Norwich Univer-sity Hospital. Along with other branch members, he visited Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, although the nearest hospital involved in the programme was Addenbrooke's in Cambridge.

Call for hygiene squads [18aug05]

Link: Herald Sun: Call for hygiene squads [18aug05].

Union state secretary Jeff Jackson said Victorian hospitals could soon face soaring superbug levels, similar to those in Britain where MRSA is suspected of causing 5000 deaths. He said the Government should employ a team of 10 specialists to do spot checks on health workers and hospital equipment. But Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said the Government already employed 200 infection control experts and would not consider hygiene squads. "All our hospitals do have very high standards of cleanliness and they are audited very, very regularly, there are independent audits and internal audits," she said.

Cleaner complaint in MRSA fear

Link: The Herts Advertiser - part of Herts24.

ACTION has been taken by health chiefs after complaints that a hospital cleaner was failing to carry out procedures designed to prevent the spread of the superbug MRSA. A nurse, who wants to remain anonymous, highlighted the issue of a cleaner employed by contractors Medirest after the woman had worked in a barrier ward at St Albans City Hospital where a patient was suffering from MRSA. The nurse said the cleaner has been in the infected area without wearing the correct protective overall. She had then gone on to clean Sopwell Ward in the hospital's Runcie Wing with the same mop which she then washed in a kitchen sink. The nurse claimed the cleaner involved in the incident had been reprimanded two months ago for sleeping in one of the hospital beds. The incident was reported to the hospital management and an incident form was filled in.

MRSA, hankies and ward floors

Link: the super bug

Mmmmm .... Conclusive proof re hanky? As for the expert - is his analysis biased by being a disinfectant manufacturer?

A Crippled old woman has told how she almost lost her life to MRSA, after dropping her hankie on a hospital floor and catching the super bug in her nose. Christina Norman, 81, only survived the infection because of five weeks' intensive disinfection. Her case has led to an expert calling for a ban on cotton hankies in UK hospitals, because wards are so dirty. Christina, of Newquay, Cornwall, said: "It's coming to something when the most dangerous thing about getting old is going to hospital and dropping your hankie. "I only dropped it on the floor for a second: when I got home my nose was bleeding and I had got bronchitis: They took a scrape and I was diagnosed with MRSA." MRSA expert Dr Chris Malyszewisz said: "It could have come from the hankie: If you take a cotton hankie into a UK hospital your chances of getting contaminated with any bug rise. People don't realise how easy it is to get contaminated. I would never take a cotton hankie into a hospital."

A Cleaner or a Curator?

Link: Times Online.

A HOSPITAL’S decision to hire an art curator days after it was criticised for cancelled operations and a poor MRSA record has been condemned by nurses and patients. Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge has placed an advertisement for the £37,000 a year post in today’s edition of The Guardian, and it also appeared in the Public Agenda section of The Times. But patient groups believe that the money could be better spent on nursing staff and cleaners. The Patients Association said that the decision to recruit an art curator was “amazing”. Simon Williams, policy director at the Patients Association, said: “Most art co-ordinators at hospitals are volunteers. Not only could you probably employ a couple of extra nurses on this salary, I would rather see the money spent on more cleaners.”

Cumberland Infirmary go for deep clean

Link: News & Star.

CARLISLE’S Cumberland Infirmary is to be comprehensively “deep cleaned” just weeks after a health watchdog highlighted dirty conditions which were putting patients’ health at risk. Hospital chiefs today insisted that the deep clean was not as a result of any investigations. It was taking the opportunity to clean all areas of the hospital while refurbishment was taking place. Patients will be moved into the infirmary’s temporary Mulberry Unit to make way for work teams who will redecorate and strip clean wards in a bid to beat hospital acquired infections such as the MRSA superbug. Managers have not spelled out the likely impact of the clean-up operation on the availability of beds. The clean-up will get underway in the next two weeks.