Moorfields has lowest infection rates

[Louise Pembroke]

It was reported in The Times that Moorfields is in the lowest infection rate league, and has no MRSA cases in addition. Good to know!

[jayuk]

Is that across Hospitals in the UK or is that across Eye Units in UK?

If its the former; than Yes very impressive!

J

[Sweet]

Hhmm this is very interesting. I do have to say though that in reality eye hospitals shouldn't really have many infection issues. They do not really deal with as many infections and bodily waste as general hospitals do, with orthopaedic wards being the worst due to more elderly incontinent patients.

Also as they are dealing with eyes i have noticed that all staff do wash their hands more than staff in other hospitals as they won't examine you before doing that. Maybe all the lectures we get on handwashing proves a valid point as this has been the one main recognised action to stop spreading infections. I for one won't let anyone examine my eyes unless they have washed their hands first!

Sweet X x X

[Louise Pembroke]

Take your point Sweet, but it's still good to know anyhow.
Yes J, hospitals across the UK. Brighton and the Royal Free have the worst [which doesn't surprise me].

[Andrew MacLean]

Louise

Are you sure its hospitals in the UK and not in England and Wales. The health service in Scotland and the service in Northern Ireland are usually reported separately.

Andrew

[Louise Pembroke]

Looks like UK, not anywhere else Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

High rates of HAI (hospital acquired infection) and MRSA have tended to be linked to hospitals that have privatised their cleaning services - contracted out cleaning, done by poorly motivated staff on rock-bottom wages herded from job to job by slave-driver-ish bosses trying to make money by shaving costs to the extreme leads to poor cleaning, poor hygiene and greater infection rates. That's the theory and when I worked for the public health labs, that's what they were finding, even if not producing official statistics.
I agree also about eye units not being places where you'd expect high rates - and hence a specialist eye hospital might expect to be well-placed inthe league tables.
That is, mainly people in overall good health, just got an eye problem. Only small sized wounds (after operations, I mean - not several inches long per incision), regularly tended with drops and tears to wash the eyes too.
And few of the patients on antibiotics, and those mainly antibiotic eye drops, so less chance to build up antibiotic resistance by having lots of antibiotics floating about for the bugs to get used, and hence immune, to.
[Staph aureus is a very common bacterium, which doesn't usually cause problems - until it develops antibiotic-resistant strains and gets into the patients' systems via wounds.]
Rosemary