Chamber and committees

Data for (a) and (b) are provided in the table below. It is not possible, however, to provide figures on the specific infections requested at (c), (d) or (e).

 

Deaths with Mention of Clostridium Difficile or MRSA in Scotland for the Period 2001 to 2006:

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
Clostridium Difficile mentioned (underlying cause of death or contributory factor)	170	164	188	239	313	417
Clostridium Difficile underlying cause of death	57	70	73	98	102	164
MRSA mentioned (underlying cause of death or contributory factor)	136	155	169	190	212	213
MRSA underlying cause of death	36	46	39	42	38	51

 

NHS Glasgow notified Health Protection Scotland (HPS) in accordance with the guidance set out in Annex 4 of the 2003 guidance document Managing Incidents Presenting Actual and Potential Risks to Public Health: Guidance on Roles and Responsibilities of Incident Control Teams. The guidance sets out the circumstances under which HPS should be informed of incidents and outbreaks. The Scottish Government was notified of the case by HPS on 13 May and I was kept regularly briefed by my officials thereafter. HPS were proactive on the matter and sent a letter to all NHS boards on 14 May 2008 to reinforce advice on the measures to control Clostridium difficile and a News Release was issued by them on 15 May.

I am advised by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde that £1.1million of capital-related investment was made in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008.

I refer the member to the answer to questions S3W-14368 and S3W-14685 on 14 July and 23 July 2008 respectively. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found: at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The operational deployment of resources is a matter for chief constables, and no information on planned establishment levels is held centrally.

Figures on the number of police officers employed are collected on a whole-time equivalent basis for the Quarterly Strength Return. This is updated on a quarterly basis to reflect returns for 31 March, 30 June, 30 September and 31 December. Copies of the latest figures for 2007-08 are available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 43307).

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-14659 on 4 July 2008. I also announced on 18 June 2008 that an independent review would be held into the circumstances surrounding the clostridium difficile cases at the Vale of Leven Hospital. The review team’s report will be published at the end of July 2008.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I refer the member to the statement I made to the Parliament on 18 June 2008.

Real time local surveillance and monitoring is already in place in NHS boards. As part of the board wide review into numbers of clostridium difficile cases and deaths going back to December 2007 which is currently underway, all NHS boards have been asked to review and validate the performance of local surveillance systems and provide comments. Health Protection Scotland (HPS) and the Scottish Government will consider their responses to that exercise once the results are known at the end of July. Thereafter, HPS will produce draft guidance on local surveillance for healthcare associated infection (HAI) generally for discussion at the next HAI Task Force meeting on 3 September.

As confirmed to Ross Finnie at the question and answer session following the my statement at the Parliament on 18 June, I will update members about the above exercise should anything arise. I will also be discussing the adequacy of local systems and the type of monitoring that is being applied across each board area when I next meet with chief executives and we have asked HPS to ensure that all diagnostic labs are linked to the Electronic Communication of Surveillance in Scotland (ECOSS) system later this year to pave the way for a web-based local surveillance reporting system.

I refer the member to the statement I made to the Parliament on 18 June 2008 which details all the steps taken by me, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Scottish Government officials since these cases became known.

I am advised by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde that the look-back exercise for the period 1 December 2007 to 1 June 2008 confirmed that patients in wards 3, 4, 6, 14, 15 and F of the Vale of Leven Hospital were treated for clostridium difficile.

Scottish guidance on surveillance of clostridium difficile associated disease (CDAD) has been available since the start of the mandatory CDAD surveillance programme in September 2006 and this was updated in October 2007.

A range of CDAD documents have been produced by Health Protection Scotland for NHS boards. These include the Standard Infection Control Precautions model policies which have been available since September 2006 (with supporting education materials for hand hygiene and personal protective equipment also available), transmission-based precautions model policies (including contact precautions policy with clostridium difficile specific hand hygiene and cleaning guidance) which was launched April 2008, the CDAD care bundle which was launched in March 2008 and a checklist for preventing and controlling CDAD was circulated for comment on 19 June to all Infection Control Managers.

Health Protection Scotland is drafting new overarching national guidance to account for the above publications and the Scottish Government’s HAI Task Force has been advised that a final draft will be provided to them in September 2008.