Pro-active inspections combat hospital bugs

Hospitals subject to pro-active inspections are showing significant improvement in tackling superbugs.

Scotland’s Healthcare Environment Inspectorate (HEI) annual report contains useful data on the importance of pro-active, rather than after-the-event, inspections.

The HEI’s latest annual report shows that since the organisation instituted a system of predominantly unannounced inspections, cleanliness and infection rates have substantially improved. The HEI has carried out 25 unannounced and six announced inspections in the past year — at 31 acute hospitals in 14 health boards.

The HEI has the power to issue requirements (order improvements) and recommendations (point out best practice guidance). For the period October 2011 to September 2012, the number of times that requirements had to be issued fell to 110 and the number of recommendations fell to 81. This compares to a figure of 172 requirements and 180 recommendations for the same period a year earlier.

And correspondingly, infections from superbugs (such as MRSA and C. difficile) are falling. Cases of C. difficile among patients over the age 65 fell by 37% in 2011-12 compared to 2009-10, while cases of MRSA fell by 35%.

Susan Brimelow, chief inspector of HEI, credited the use of pro-active inspections — a system that has been cutback by the Health and Safety Executive. “I am confident our programme of predominantly unannounced inspections is paying dividends and we will continue to scrutinise hospitals in this way,” she said.

www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/our_work/inspecting_and_regulating_care/hei_inspections.aspx