A clean sweep in the fight to banish MRSA; A hospital's target to reduce the potentially fatal MRSA bug has been met. Health Reporter HELEN RAE explains.

Byline: HELEN RAE

AN infection control drive at a Tyneside hospital has seen a fall in MRSA.

Gateshead's Queen Elizabeth Hospital recorded just 16 cases of the infection among the 30,000 patients admitted to the hospital between April 1 last year and March 31 this year - a reduction of 50% on the previous year.

And the improvement is being put down to a control initiative driven by an expanded infection prevention and control team.

Chief executive at the Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, Ian Renwick, said: "We are delighted at this improvement in performance.

"It shows that by working together, staff, patients, visitors and external agencies such as Primary Care Trusts can make real inroads against healthcare-associated infection.

"However, this success will not make us complacent.

"MRSA is a common infection, carried by about one in three of the population, so we must continue to be vigilant in order to stop it spreading to vulnerable people.

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It shows patients, external as Primary can make against "We will continue to work to minimise rates of infection, as part of our drive to provide high quality care to our patients." The trust is meeting the Department of Health requirement to screen all elective medical and surgical patients for Meticillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and is ahead of the 2011 target for the checking of emergency patients.

As well as the screening, the campaign included giving patients identified as carrying MRSA a nasal treatment and body wash to remove or reduce the carriage of the infection from their skin.

From this month, all elective patients are also being sent the body wash to use in the run up to their hospital stay.

Infection control initiatives such as 'bare below the elbow' have also been deployed. This improves hand hygiene and reduces cross infection and compliance is measured weekly.

In addition, an awareness raising event was staged at which staff and visitors were able to ask the infection prevention and control team questions about the screening programme and the benefits to patient safety. by working staff, and such Trusts inroads infectionIt shows that by working together, staff, patients, visitors and external agencies such as Primary Care Trusts can make real inroads against healthcareassociated infection

CAPTION(S):

INFECTION LEVELS ON THE DECLINE - Ian Renwick, chief executive at the Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, is delighted at the progress made