Last updated at 16:05, Friday, 15 March 2013

THE chief nurse at the trust which runs Furness General Hospital has said she is “very disappointed” after the maximum number of cases of MRSA allowed across Morecambe Bay during this financial year were identified at the Barrow hospital in January alone.

The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust had been set a target of no more than three patients suffering MRSA bacteraemia bloodstream infections across all its sites for 2012/13.

But in January, three cases were identified at FGH.

Jackie Holt, UHMBT executive chief nurse, said: “These patients were fairly complex and, during the course of their journey across the organisation, touched on most wards and departments. We have done a review of all the cases.”

In one case the trust has raised an appeal, as the patient had signs of infection on admission to the hospital but was so ill staff could not get blood samples to confirm it at that point.

But Mrs Holt said a major campaign around infection prevention was set to be launched.

She said: “There are lots of lessons to be learned in terms of screening.

“We have found people are not complying with the policy – they’re doing partial screenings.

“We have got this action plan in place but, fundamentally, what we’re going to do is a really intensive piece of work, go back to basics and relaunch the processes for infection prevention in hospitals.

“I’m very disappointed that this has happened, given that our performance has been so good in previous years, but let me be quite clear: we won’t tolerate this.”

Mrs Holt also reported at the last UHMBT board meeting that cases of clostridium difficile (C Diff) are one over trajectory for the financial year.

The trust must see no more than 40 by the end of March. Mrs Holt said she was confident the current numbers could be pulled back to achieve this ahead of 2013/14, when UHMBT will be allowed no more than 36.

First published at 15:58, Friday, 15 March 2013
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk