Sir Richard Branson accuses politicians of failing over hospital superbugs .

Sir
Richard Branson criticised "horrific" hospital infection rates,
accusing politicians and health bosses of "tinkering" with the problem.

The Virgin tycoon, who was recently appointed vice-president of the
Patients Association, called for all hospital staff to be screened for
the
superbug MRSA and receive immediate treatment if infected.He has also
said managers at failing NHS trusts should be fired.Infection
rates for MRSA are falling across the UK with the most recent quarterly
figures showing a 33 per cent drop year on year, but Sir Richard is
calling for more to be done.The entrepreneur - whose daughter
Holly is a doctor - told the BBC: "There have been some improvements,
but the facts speak for themselves - and the facts are still horrific."It
feels like they have tinkered with the problem rather than really got
to the heart of the problem. The hospitals are there to cure people.
They
are not there to kill people."He said the NHS could learn from the
airline industry about how to avoid mistakes and improve."In the
airline industry if we had that kind of track record we would have been
grounded years ago," he said."In the airline industry if there is an
adverse event that information is sent out to every airline in the
world."And every airline makes absolutely certain that that adverse
event doesn't happen twice."Sir Richard is helping to organise an
international conference on infection control and patient safety early
next year.He
argued that all hospital staff including doctors, nurses and cleaners
should be checked for MRSA and treated if infected - even if that
causes
disruption to medical services.He said: "You don't necessarily have to
ask them to leave the hospital while they are being treated."They
can just not have any contact with patients for those two weeks while
their treatment is taking place, and then they can come back and have
contact with patients."That is far better than having people
dying from unnecessary diseases, and all the misery and pain that that
causes, and the cost to the NHS which is enormous."Official data
from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) showed there were 725 MRSA
cases in July to September, a 33 per cent drop on the same quarter in
the previous year.The number of C difficile infections in
patients aged 65 and over between April and June this year also fell 38
per cent, to 8,683 cases.Sir Richard, who became the
vice-president of the Patients Association in September, called for
more patient information about infection rates and a tougher standards
for trust bosses.He said: "The patient should have the right to
know the track record not only of the hospitals, but the rate on wards,
on departments, on surgeons, on clinicians."That shouldn't be something which is hidden."And
I also think if managers of hospitals are not obeying the rules that
have been set by the NHS, those managers should be replaced."A
spokesman for the Department of Health in England said: "The government
is taking tough actions in the fight against infections."These
include stringent hand-washing across the NHS, doubling the number of
matrons and giving them greater powers to enforce cleanliness
standards, and screening admitted patients for MRSA."These are
clearly making an impact as we have halved MRSA infections since
2003/04 and C difficile infections are down 35 per cent on the same
quarter last year."




It is about time someone spoke out about this ,it is unacceptable that MRSA is so common in hospitals in the UK and over here. Well done Richard.