Figures show 1 in 50 who died at RD&E had MRSA or C diff bugs

NEARLY two in every 100 people who have died at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital in the last five years have had the MRSA or Clostridium difficile infections.

Of the 6,818 people who died there between 2003 and 2007, 101 had C Diff, and 26 had MRSA, figures released by the Office for National Statistics show.

That means that 0.38 per cent of patient deaths involved MRSA and 1.48 per cent of patient deaths involved C diff.

Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital director of infection prevention and control and lead nurse Judy Potter said the figures were small in relation to other hospitals, but staff at the RD&E had reduced the numbers of MRSA and C diff during the last five years.

She said: "These are very low figures and it is accepted that it is not possible to achieve zero levels because MRSA and Clostridium difficile are micro-organisms naturally carried on the human body of a small proportion of the population without signs and symptoms."

Across England and Wales, the number of people dying who were suffering from C difficile has risen by 28 per cent in England and Wales, according to the ONS, which said 8,324 death certificates mentioned the infection in 2007, compared with 6,480 the previous year.

RD&E hospital staff achieved the MRSA bacteraemia target for the past year and made a 65 per cent reduction from 52 cases in 2003/2004 to 18 in 2007/08.

"Patients who die with MRSA are usually very poorly in the first instance and when MRSA and C diff are mentioned on death certificates that may not be as the cause of death but as one of several contributory factors," Judy Potter said.

She said that hygiene was an important element of hospital life and figures for 2007 showed the total hospital acquired infection rate was 4.17 per cent compared with 8.19 per cent nationally.

She added steps were being made to improve care further.

"We are working hard to reduce hospital acquired infection further with a wide range of measures from hand hygiene by staff, to appropriate prescription of antibiotics and deep cleaning of our wards," she said.

MRSA, sometime referred to as the superbug, stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (SA) and is a bacteria carried on the surface of the skin or in the nose.

If the bacteria gets into the body through a break in the skin it can cause infections. If it gets into the bloodstream it can cause more serious infections.

C diff is present naturally in the stomach of three per cent of adults and 66 per cent of children, and does not cause a problem in healthy people. Some antibiotics can kill healthy bugs, causing an imbalance of C diff bacteria and this can cause diarrhoea and and fever.