| A junior doctor has said that attempts to wipe | | | | disease." |
| out the superbug are nothing more than a | | | | Skip forward a couple of years and Health |
| government PR exercise. Max Pemberton, writing | | | | Secretary Alan Johnson was putting infection at |
| in his Daily Telegraph column, described recent | | | | the top of his priority list. Speaking last November |
| policies as no more than an attempt to reassure | | | | he vowed to 'fight infection on the front line,' and |
| the public, with no actual clinical worth. | | | | launched a range of measures to combat the bug. |
| "Under the dress-code policy rolled out in hospitals | | | | "To ensure patients' safety I want a regulator |
| last month, doctors are not allowed on to a ward | | | | with the power to close, clean and then re-open |
| wearing a coat or outer garment, and they must | | | | wards if necessary," he said. "This tough regime |
| have their shirt sleeves rolled up to their elbows, | | | | will not just apply across the NHS but in the |
| with no watches or other jewelery," wrote Dr | | | | private sector as well." |
| Pemberton. "This purports to be an attempt to | | | | It is hard to believe that hospitals are genuinely |
| reduce hospital-acquired infections being spread by | | | | dirtier than they were thirty or forty years ago |
| staff." | | | | though. It may be good PR to introduce more |
| "No one would question the importance of hand | | | | matrons and remove doctor's wrist watches, but |
| washing in clinical settings. But as doctors, we are | | | | it this really going to see off a superbug? |
| encouraged to practise evidence-based medicine, | | | | The answer may come in reducing the amount of |
| so I would expect there to be some evidence | | | | antibiotics that doctors use. MRSA great danger is |
| that a blanket 'bare below the elbows' policy | | | | that it is unaffected by many types of antibiotics, |
| works," he added. "It's meaningless, a waste of | | | | and that the delay in finding an effective |
| time and money, and it won't help make hospitals | | | | treatment gives a patient the time to get |
| any safer." | | | | seriously sick. MRSA was first discovered in 1961, |
| But if these measures are useless, then what | | | | about the time that penicillin use began to become |
| measures can be taken to reduce infections that | | | | almost ubiquitous. |
| are becoming an increasing problem in our | | | | "In the old days, before we had problems with |
| hospitals? It has been claimed that infections kill at | | | | resistance, people thought it really didn't matter - |
| least 5,000 people in UK hospitals every year, and | | | | you could throw antibiotics at these cases and |
| a recent survey showed that one in five people | | | | you would pick up the odd one that was treatable |
| who contract MRSA are dead within a year. It is | | | | that way," said Dr Mark Enright, an MRSA expert |
| clearly a serious problem, yet despite the huge | | | | at Imperial College London. |
| amounts of publicity given to the issue little | | | | Johnson has ordered GPs to cut back on the |
| progress seems to have been made. | | | | amount antibiotics dolled out to patients, and |
| Back in 2005 the Office for National Statistics | | | | many doctors support his move. |
| recorded 1,629 deaths as a result of MRSA - a | | | | "The use of antibiotics have saved countless lives, |
| big increase on the years before. It did not feel | | | | but antibiotics do not work on most coughs, colds |
| that this was necessarily the result of hospitals | | | | and sore throats and their unnecessary use can |
| getting dirtier though, and instead, said that the | | | | leave the body susceptible to gut infections like |
| main reason for the sudden upturn was: | | | | Clostridium difficile ," said Johnson recently. He will |
| "improved levels of reporting, possibly brought | | | | hope that his latest move proves more |
| about by the continued high public profile of the | | | | successful than his previous ones. |