MRSA infections not stopped by isolation; doctors suggest hand-washing as control

• ISOLATING intensive care patients infected with MRSA does not stop the hospital superbug spreading, according to new research published today.
• The practice is one of the main strategies used by Scottish hospitals to try to stop MRSA cases infecting other patients.
• But a study in medical journal The Lancet suggests the policy makes no difference to transmission rates - at least as far as intensive care patients are concerned.
• The news comes the day after health chiefs were accused of covering up the fact that Lothian grandmother Ina Boyd, 76, died after contracting MRSA at the cityâ¬(TM)s Western General hospital.
• The study highlighted the failure of staff to wash their hands often enough in the hospitals involved as a possible cause of the problem.
• Dr Peter Wilson, from University College London Hospital, led the research at his hospital and the Royal Free Hospital.
• Over the course of a year, patients undergoing intensive care at the hospitals were screened weekly for colonisation of MRSA.
• During the middle six months, MRSA-positive patients were not moved to a single room or isolated as a group unless they were at risk of spreading other serious infections.
• No changes in transmission or infection rate were seen between the two different systems.
• The "standard precautions" include the careful observance of hand hygiene and glove use.
• Hospital-acquired infections cost the NHS about £1 billion per year and, according to official estimates, claim around 5000 lives.
• A patient has a one in 396 chance of contracting MRSA during a ten-day hospital stay in the Lothians, worse than any other region of the country.
• "Most institutions still tolerate defect or failure rates in hand hygiene of 40 per cent or more - levels that would be considered shocking in any other industry."