Thursday 16th December 2010
The Chesterfield Royal Hospital has announced today that it has extended its MRSA screening programme to include emergency patients.
The infection control programme was introduced in March 2009 and meant that routine screening took place amongst all patients undergoing surgical procedures but, until now, that hasn't included all emergency admissions.
Diane Simpson, Senior Matron for Infection Prevention has told us that the Royal has very low infection rates with only three cases of hospital acquired MRSA (against a target of eight) recorded in 2009/10, and only two cases recorded so far this year since the beginning of April.
She also explained what the screening involves, "What we're looking for is the harmless colonisation of MRSA bacteria that lives on the skin of close to a third of all people, typically around the nasal area, groin or breaks in the skin. A simple swab test is all that's needed to determine whether or not they're a carrier and, if it's confirmed, they will be given treatment that takes around five days."
Treatment for any MRSA presence involves a cream or shampoo that decolonises the MRSA bacteria and therefore reduces the risk of a blood infection when that person undergoes their surgical procedure.
Diane added: "There are a lot of misconceptions about MRSA but it's only on the rare occasions that it enters the bloodstream that it becomes a problem and this screening process is designed to reduce that risk.
"By including the emergency admissions and decolonising the bacteria we are reducing the risk of surgery-related infection during their hospital stay. This is another welcome addition to our already strong programme of infection control, hand hygiene and cleaning regime."
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