Mr. William O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many hospitals have reported outbreaks of methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus in(a) the Yorkshire region and (b) the United Kingdom in the last six months. [4786]
§ Mr. HoramThe Public Health Laboratory Service maintains aggregate data on methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus as part of its national surveillance of communicable disease and infection, compiled from requests submitted by hospitals for the typing of isolates. In the six months, up to and including October 1996, 185 hospitals in England and Wales were identified as having an incident in which MRSA was implicated; 11 of these hospitals were in the old Yorkshire regional health authority. These figures represent the number of patients affected by MRSA not the number infected—about 80 per cent. of people who acquire MRSA carry it harmlessly and do not suffer infection. An incident is three or more patients with the same strain in a month from the same hospital.
Questions relating to Scotland and Northern Ireland are matters for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.