§ Mr. LeighTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made towards the establishment of a mandatory national surveillance scheme to measure the extent of hospital-acquired infection; and what reduction in the rate of infection has been achieved.[90278]
§ Ms BlearsThe first phase of the national mandatory surveillance system for hospital acquired infection on methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) blood stream infections was introduced in April 2001.
The results for the first year of this scheme, from April 2001 to March 2002, for every national health service acute trust in England were published in the Communicable Disease Report (CDR) Weekly on 20 June 2002. These are available on Public Health Laboratory Service's website at www.phls.co.uk/pubications/cdr/PDFfiles/2002/cdr2502.pdf.
This first year's data provides a baseline from which progress can be measured and a MRSA improvement score has been included in the NHS performance management system for 2002–03.
The second phase of the surveillance system will be implemented shortly.