Infection Control at Hospitals is Stepped Up

The fight against infections in local hospitals has been stepped up this week with the introduction of a team of cleaners who have been specially trained to carry out deep cleans and provide a rapid response.    Hotel Services Manager William Britton said: “Cleaning at Ashford and St. Peter’s was brought back in-house in 2006 and this has enabled us to integrate our cleaning staff into ward based teams.    Now we are introducing a rapid response service with staff who have been specifically trained to carry out an extensive in-depth cleaning program.”

The Rapid Response Teams will be able to provide:

·          Rapid response to special cleaning requests, which are often requested when a patient has had a known infection such MRSA and Clostridium difficile (and other 'superbugs').   A quicker response to the request will allow ward based Housekeeping staff to concentrate on the day to day ward / clinic cleaning duties.

·          High level cleaning such as light diffusers, electrical fans, wall-washing and cleaning behind radiators and fitments – tasks previously undertaken by a separate department.

·          Deep cleaning including stripping and polishing floors. This will be carried out in conjunction with clinical activity to minimise disruption.

The teams, who have a yellow uniform top, are being rolled out from the 1st November 2007 and will initially cover A&E, Intensive Care, May & Birch Wards in the main buildings and Joan Booker Labour ward / Theatres & the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in the Abbey Wing on the St. Peter’s Hospital site.   This will be followed by a gradual Trust wide rollout over the coming months.   The teams will be on calI through a central helpdesk.

Welcoming this development, Dr Angela Shaw, Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Ashford and St. Peter’s said: “Bringing cleaning back in house made a significant improvement to cleaning standards at our hospitals and the Rapid Response Teams are a welcome development on top of this.   Fast and efficient deep cleaning of areas, where we have identified an infection control problem, will be an additional weapon in our armoury in the fight against bugs such as MRSA and C. difficile.   It is important that we do everything possible in the fight against infections and we are constantly looking at other ways in which we can reduce infection rates.

“Over recent years we have successfully integrated good infection control procedures into every day life at Ashford and St. Peter’s.   The Norovirus outbreak caused additional cases of C. difficile in the April to June quarter of this year but I am convinced that our intensive infection control action then prevented us from turning into another Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells.   And forty six per cent of the total C. difficile cases reported last week for the April to July 2007 quarter were for people who had been seen by their GP or had brought the infection into hospital, and up to a third of these were from GPs outside Surrey.  These are not people who have caught an infection in hospital - a point which seems to have been missed or understated by some newspaper reports.

“I am confident that our figures for the July to September quarter will show that we have C. difficile under control.   Our 12 point C. difficile action plan including the introduction of new antibiotic guidelines which restrict the type of antibiotics to be used, more rapid isolation of infected patients by daily involvement of the bed managers, extra audit of practices on the wards including hand hygiene; and the option of opening an isolation ward if numbers of patients with C difficile starts to increase, are all helping to ensure that we make progress in this on-going fight.

Between 2005/06 and 2006/07 the MRSA bacteraemia rate at Ashford and St. Peter’s fell by 40 per cent and is now one of the lowest in the South East region.    To combat C. difficile and continue the improvements in the MRSA bacteremia rates the Trust has, since August 2007, invested over £200,000 in new measures to combat infections, including:

·          Additional storage on Cedar, May, Holly and Juniper Wards for maceratable products;

·          Refurbishment of Maple Ward and creation of additional storage;

·          Creation of a new isolation room in the Surgical High Dependency Unit;

·          Additional hand basins for Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

·          Intelligent computer software to provide real-time infection surveillance information by linking microbiology laboratory results with patient information by ward to provide early warning and analysis of possible infection outbreaks;

·          A new Microfibre cleaning system at Ashford Hospital;

·          New washing and scrubbing machines; andNew commodes, waste bins and mattress cleaning equipment.

“Ensuring that the accommodation for our patients is modern and easy to clean is important;” continued Dr Shaw, “and that is just one reason why we have moved out of the old West Wing at Ashford Hospital.   We are reducing the risk of our patients catching an infection by putting in place this raft of measures and ensuring that we can respond more rapidly when patients need isolation and areas need to be cleaned.”

Commenting on infection control, Acting Chief Executive Paul Bentley says: “It is important to recognise that our laboratories test and report on MRSA, C. difficile and other infections on behalf of the local community, not just Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals.   More accurate reporting now indicates that C. difficile and MRSA is more widespread in the local community than used to be thought.     We have taken strong and deliberate action in our hospitals in recent months to improve and enhance our measures to prevent and control infection.   Visitors to our hospitals can assist by ensuring that they follow our Visitor Partnership Guidance.”

Visitor Partnership Guidance for Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals asks people to:

·          Do not visit if you are unwell and Use the hand gel every time you enter or leave the ward, bay or cubicle

·          Do not sit on patients’ beds and do not bring flowers or plants as gifts

·          Only visit hospital between 2 and 4pm and 6 and 8pm;

·          Children under 10 should not visit the hospital without first speaking to the Nurse in Charge and then all children should be supervised at all times;

The full visitor partnership guidance is available on our website at www.ashfordtstpeters.nhs.uk