Work to tackle infection pays off at Chichester hospital

MEASURES to tackle infection at St Richard's Hospital in Chichester are paying off, according to new figures.

Work on boosting hygiene to reduce hospital-acquired bugs like MRSA by the Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, which also runs Worthing and Southlands hospitals, has shown promising results in its annual report.

“Through the year the trust continued to benefit from a major focus on infection control with a reduction in numbers of cases of C. difficile and of MRSA bacteraemias, meeting the set target for both,” wrote Marjory Greig, infection control doctor and consultant microbiologist, in the report.

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The trust trumped the national average of 1.3 cases of hospital-acquired MRSA, a dangerous superbug, per 100,000 bed days by reporting zero cases – the last was at Southlands Hospital in Shoreham in December 2010. It was one of just nine trusts in the whole of the south not to have any cases.

It also reported a decrease in cases of C. difficile, a stomach bug, to 76 cases for the year, 49 cases fewer than 2010/11. The majority of other infections recorded were found to be community-acquired.

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