Home > News > Record low infection rates at St George’s Hospital

Published: 5 May 2011

St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust has achieved the lowest infection rates it has ever recorded for MRSA and Clostridium difficile (C.diff) at St George’s Hospital, Tooting, and the Wolfson Neurorehabilitation Centre, Wimbledon.

Acquiring only nine MRSA infections and 83 C.diff infections during 2010/11, the trust remained within its mandatory performance limits for both MRSA and C.diff, of nine and 168 respectively. This achievement included a period of over 200 days where none of the hospital’s patients acquired MRSA blood stream infection.

The trust’s management of infection has been developing over recent years and infection rates have improved consistently since 2006. Among teaching hospitals in London, the trust recorded the lowest C.diff rate1 and the second lowest MRSA rate2 for 2010/11.

The trust’s Infection control doctor Rick Holliman said: “Through hard work, vigilance and meticulous attention to detail, staff at the trust have successfully driven down infections and recorded the trust’s lowest rates for both MRSA and C.diff since records began. It’s a great achievement which has increased safety for all our patients and will boost confidence in the care we provide.”

“Our methods for managing these infections have proved effective but we cannot afford to drop our guard. We will continue to implement strict hand hygiene practices, careful control of antibiotics and around the clock cleaning programmes to further reduce infection rates and keep patients at St George’s Healthcare safe.”

St George’s Healthcare publishes its infection rates quarterly online here.

Notes to editors

  1. For more information, please contact the communications team at St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust on 020 8725 5151 or email: communications@stgeorges.nhs.uk. Outside working hours, please page the team by calling 0844 822 2888, leaving a short message and contact details for pager SG548.

References

  1. For 2010/11 St George’s Healthcare recorded a Clostridium difficile infection rate of 0.5 per 10,000 bed days, which is the lowest rate when compared to the following teaching hospitals in London: Barts & the London; Chelsea & Westminster; Guy’s and St Thomas’; Imperial College; Kings College; Royal Free Hampstead; University College London. The full data are available online from the Health Protection Agency: http://www.hpa.org.uk/servlet/Satellite?c=Page&childpagename=HPAweb%2FPage%2
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  2. For 2010/11 St George’s Healthcare recorded an MRSA bloodstream infection rate of 0.55 per 100,000 bed days, which is the second lowest rate when compared to the following teaching hospitals in London: Barts & the London; Chelsea & Westminster; Guy’s and St Thomas’; Imperial College; Kings College; Royal Free Hampstead; University College London. The full data are available online from the Health Protection Agency: http://www.hpa.org.uk/servlet/Satellite?c=Page&childpagename=HPAweb%2
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    pagename=HPAwebWrapper&searchmode=simple&searchterm=mrsa+rates&go=Search    .