§ Sir E. Graham-Littleasked the Minister of Health if he will institute an inquiry, independently of the local authority, regarding the case, details of which have been submitted to him, in which a patient admitted to the New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton, in September, 1945, contracted puerperal fever, ascribed to omission of proper precautions to prevent infection from other patients suffering from this condition in the same hospital.
§ Mr. BevanI do not think the suggested inquiry would serve any useful purpose. The whole circumstances were thoroughly investigated by one of my medical officers last January. Two other cases of pyrexia occurred in the hospital during the period that the woman concerned was a patient in the maternity unit, and I am advised that in each of the three cases the pyrexia was attributable to clinical conditions not associated with uterine infection and there was no organism common to all. Nothing was found to support the suggestion that proper precautions were not taken to prevent the spread of infection in the hospital.