DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
News Release (2007/0269) issued by The Government News Network on 17
September 2007
Health Secretary
Alan Johnson today outlined a package of measures to help reduce
healthcare associated infections in hospitals including new
responsibilities for matrons, new guidance on clothing and the
isolation of patients who are infected.
Alan Johnson said:
"I'm determined that patient safety, including
cleanliness, should be the first priority of every NHS
organisation. Across the NHS we continue to bring the number of
MRSA cases down and make progress on measures to reduce
C.difficile. Today's package of measures will give more
responsibility to matrons and set guidelines on clothing that will
help ensure thorough hand washing and prevent the spread of
infections. This is a clear signal to patients that doctors,
nurses, and other clinical staff are taking their safety seriously."
Further options that may be needed to tackle healthcare
associated infections will be examined in Lord Darzi's
interim report into the future of the NHS, due to be published in
October. The announcement comes as the Government carries out one
of the biggest public engagement exercises in NHS history on the
issues that matter to staff, patients and the public.
The new package includes the following measures:
1. Matrons and clinical directors will report quarterly directly
to trust boards on infection control and cleanliness. These
reports will focus on compliance with statutory obligations and
will increase the ability of senior clinical staff to raise
concerns over infection control with trust boards directly.
2. New guidance on clothing will mean that hospitals will adopt
a new "bare below the elbows" dress code i.e. short
sleeves, no wrist watch, no jewellery and allied to this the
avoidance of ties when carrying out clinical activity. The
traditional doctors' white coat will not be allowed. The new
clothing guidance will ensure good hand and wrist washing.
3. New clinical guidance to increase the use of isolation for
those patients who are infected with MRSA or Clostridium
difficile. Although the best trusts will already be meeting this
standard, for the majority of trusts this will mean greater use of
single rooms, cohort nursing and better management of isolated patients.
4. The National Patient Safety Agency will extend its sccessful
cleanyourhands campaign to care settings outside hospitals. The
campaign, designed to improve hand hygiene among healthcare
workers in order to combat healthcare associated infections, will
be rolled out to primary care, ambulance, mental health and care
trusts as well as to care homes and hospices.
5. A new legal requirement will be placed on all chief executives
to report all MRSA bacteraemias and C. difficile infections to the
Health Protection Agency. It will be backed up by fines for non
compliance - failure to report will be an offence.
This package follows the announcement in July from Alan Johnson
of an extra £50 million to tackle healthcare associated
infections, asking each Director of Nursing in every Strategic
Health Authority to make sure that frontline clinicians are
supported in the work they do to reduce infection and doubling the
size of the Department of Health's infection Improvement
Team. The cash is being spent on a range of things, including:
staff training and education; increased infection surveillance;
more sinks for handwashing; upgrading isolation facilities; and
new cleaning equipment.
England's Chief Nursing Officer Professor Christine Beasley said:
"Working alongside their clinical directors, we are asking
matrons to monitor staff compliance with the 'bare below the
elbow' recommendation and the implementation of the Saving
Lives high impact interventions. They will be required to report
to the Trust's Director of Infection Control and Prevention
on at least a quarterly basis."
General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing Dr Peter Carter said:
"We support any initiative that promotes good hand hygiene
in clinical practice. This guidance offers a positive step forward
in introducing dress code standards across all health professions
to help reduce healthcare associated infections.
"Nurses are at the forefront of initiatives to tackle
healthcare associated infections but in order to be successful we
need commitment from the entire NHS team; from all staff, in all
disciplines and in every healthcare setting."
Dame Karlene Davis, General Secretary of the Royal College of
Midwives said:
"Before the inception of the NHS, one of the biggest killers
of child bearing women was puerperal sepsis. This has improved
significantly with the recognition of the need for hand hygiene to
reduce cross infection.
"This situation remains as relevant today as it did many
decades ago and the RCM wholly supports any measure which seeks to
avoid infection and harm to mothers and newborns."
Notes to Editors
- Uniforms and Workwear: An evidence base for developing local
policy can be found at http://www.dh.gov.uk. The guidance
suggests that white coats should not normally be worn, as the
cuffs are likely to be heavily contaminated. Where staff have
direct patient contact, then suitable protection - for example,
plastic aprons - should be worn.
The guidance can be found at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_078433
- All acute Trusts are expected to go 'bare below the
elbows' by January 2008.
- New clinical guidance on the isolation of infected patients can
be found at http://www.clean-safe-care.nhs.uk/Public/default.aspx?level=1&load=ArticleViewer&ArticleID=461
- The extension of the National Patient Safety Agency's
cleanyourhands campaign is being piloted by 19 'pioneer'
organisations, selected to represent a mix of non-acute care
settings throughout England and Wales. More information on
cleanyourhands is available at http://www.npsa.nhs.uk/cleanyourhands
- Patient Environment Action Teams (PEATs) were established in
2000 to assess NHS hospitals. Under the programme, every inpatient
healthcare facility in England with more than ten beds is assessed
annually and given a rating of excellent, good, acceptable, poor
or unacceptable. Cleanliness and the environment are two of the
areas that PEATs cover.
All enquiries to the Department of Health general enquiries line
020 7210 4850.
[ENDS]