The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 22 July 2008:"As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking how many deaths from hospital-acquired infections there were in Wales in each year since 1997, broken down by (a) hospital and (b) local health board area. (219709)""Death certificates record the place where a person dies, but not where any infections may have been acquired. It is not possible from the information on a death certificate to know whether an infection was acquired in the hospital or other place where a patient died. Patients are often transferred between hospitals, nursing homes and other establishments and may have acquired infections in a different place from where they died.""The Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not receive information on 'hospital-acquired infections' but special analyses of deaths involving two infections that are often associated with healthcare, MRSA and Clostridium difficile, are undertaken annually by ONS for England and Wales. The most recent figures were published in reports in Health Statistics Quarterly 37 in February of this year. This publication is available in the House of Commons library.""Additionally, a report on deaths involving MRSA and Clostridium difficile by individual communal establishment (including hospitals) where the person died was published for the first time in Health Statistics Quarterly 38 in May this year. Tables that supplement this release can be found on the National Statistics Website.¹,²""¹ http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/C_Diff_ establishments_200 l_06.xls""² http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/MRSA_ establishments_2001_06.xls"