Superbug: QE Nation’s Worst; League Tables Damning for Two Hospitals

By Alison Dayani

A BIRMINGHAM health trust has recorded the highest rate of superbug MRSA in the whole country.

Health watchdogs today hit out at University Hospital Trust, which runs Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Selly Oak Hospital, for not taking the infection seriously.

The latest Department of Health figures released today show how many positive MRSA cases surfaced at each trust between April 2004 and March 2005.

University Hospital Trust was bottom of the UK table for the second time in five years, with MRSA cases soaring from 123 to 152.

But trust bosses said figures would improve if a new superhospital, with more single rooms, went ahead.

Worsening MRSA figures for City Hospital and Sandwell Hospital, have triggered intervention by a Government hit squad.

Sandwell and West Birmingham Trust, which runs the two hospitals and is pounds 5 million in debt, had a total of 94 cases during the period.

John Adler, chief executive of the trust, blamed ageing hospitals and lack of isolation facilities for the spread of MRSA.

Tony Field, who contracted MRSA and now runs Birmingham-based group MRSA Support, said: "These results are disgraceful, especially as University Hospital Trust is the worst in the country for a second time.

"It is a sad indictment to the MRSA policies these hospitals have at the moment and they are not taking the infections seriously enough.

"I want to know why the Government isn’t intervening at the worst hospital in the country. Something needs to be done."

But Birmingham Women’s Hospital, in Edgbaston, and the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, in Northfield, recorded no MRSA cases.

Birmingham Children’s Hospital and the Dudley Group of Hospitals managed to maintain current levels and finish in the top half of the national tables.

Heartlands and Solihull Hospitals, which were exposed for hygiene problems in undercover exposes by the Birmingham Mail and BBC television’s Panorama programme, saw a significant improvement with MRSA cases falling from 106 down to 69.

Walsall Hospitals and Good Hope Hospital, in Sutton Coldfield, had a slightly increased rate of infection. Julie Moore, chief operating officer at University Hospital Trust, which also recorded the worst MRSA figures in the UK in 2002, said rates had started to improve in the past six months.

"Reducing rates of infection is more difficult without access to single rooms and we are looking forward to the new hospitals which will have 40 per cent of its beds in single rooms," said Ms Moore.

Figures are measured per every 1000 bed days and relate to the both the size of each hospital and the number patients treated.

MRSA: the facts

MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) is a bacteria found on the skin of most people.

It becomes dangerous when it causes an infection by getting under the skin through cuts, surgical incisions and wounds.

It killed 7,330 NHS patients in 2004.

Most strains of the bug now resistant to drugs methicillin and flucloxacillin. Other antibiotics can be used but must be administered through a drip inserted into a vein