Hospital superbugs

What has caused the increase in “hospital superbugs” like MRSA?

Lack of proper cleaning and hygiene and misuse of antibiotics, leading to more drug-resistant bugs.

Let’s start with cleanliness. The rot set in during the mid-1980s, when hospitals contracted out cleaning – as the NHS was starved of funds. By seeing cleaning as an unwelcome cost, and not an essential part of healthcare, the Conservatives’ contracting out policy began all this.

Yet Labour has failed to turn things round. Basic hygiene practices – washing hands properly, for example, - are too often forgotten, and no-one insists on them any more. Staff, patients and visitors to a hospital must all be required to wash their hands.

By unwise expansion of the Conservatives’ Private Finance Initiative, Labour has made the problem of contracting out hospital cleaning even worse. When I urged Kingston Hospital to end contracting out, and bring cleaning back in-house, I was told that the Treasury rules for their new PFI contract forbade my idea.

Yet the superbug rise is also linked to misuse of antibiotics. Overprescription. And we, the patients, too often failing to finish the entire course. So the bugs get stronger, and can survive the next antibiotic meant to kill them.

We need tougher action, before it’s too late. NHS staff need compulsory infection control training. And we - the patients and hospital visitors - must play our part too.