Hospitals, filled with weak patients, open wounds and patients connected to catheters are hotbeds for bacterial infections.

In the UK, over 100,000 people a year catch an infection during their stay in hospital. Over 5,000 patients die each year because of an infection they picked up while in hospital.

Over-reliance on antibiotics

We have been prescribing too many antibiotics over the last twenty of so years. This has encouraged the development of drug-resistant bacteria (superbugs).

A report from the National Audit Office (UK) said that the main reason for these superbug infections is inadequate hygiene standards in hospitals.

It said that not only were hospital personnel not washing their hands often and well enough, but also too little money was being spent on infection control staff.

Many doctors and nurses were not washing their hands between patients.

Professor Hugh Pennington (Bacteriologists, Aberdeen University, Scotland) said that if correct action were taken this problem could be reduced by 90%. ’This is not rocket science. We need to change people’s behaviour. We know that people do not wash their hands when they should which is one of the absolutely crucial measures about controlling bugs like MRSI. We need to have a really strong blitz on this bug. Other countries have done it and are succeeding.’

UK Health Secretary (Cabinet Member in UK government), John Reid, said that a number of factors were responsible for this problem. There has been an increase in the use of antibiotics over the last few decades; we now have new technology which is more intrusive (such as catheters and intravenous drips).

What worries UK experts is that hospital infections are higher in the UK than in most other European countries (and they use the same methods and technology).

Superbug rates in UK vary

Figures released this week show that in the UK the superbug MRSA rates vary enormously from hospital to hospital.

The difference between the best and worst hospital in the country is 900%. What is more worrying is that many of the worst hospitals have some of the best hygiene standards.