HC Deb 11 December 1996 vol 287 cc285-6W
Mr. Flynn

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many(a) cases and (b) deaths from MRSA have been recorded in (i) hospitals and (ii) the community in Scotland in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [8317]

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

The number of cases of MRSA reported to the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health by laboratories throughout Scotland for each year since 1991 is given in the following table. It is not possible to distinguish between cases identified in hospitals and in the community.

Year Number of cases
1991 432
1992 464
1993 442
1994 464
1995 600

Deaths due to MRSA do not have a distinct code within the revision of the international classification of diseases for encoding death registration data. Consequently, there are no centrally held statistics on deaths from MRSA.