MP questions bug hospital safety

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Reassurances that hospitals are safe are being sought after a report revealed 90 patients died from clostridium difficile in Kent.

Greg Clark, Tunbridge Wells MP, was meeting health chiefs at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS on Friday.

Kent Police have launched an investigation into whether the trust should be prosecuted for the deaths.

The Healthcare Commission report said a "litany" of errors in infection control caused the "avoidable tragedy".

Mr Clark said: "I want answers, reassurances, as to whether the level of infection control now in place is sufficient and satisfactory.

"It concerns me that Kent Air Ambulance won't land at Maidstone, I want to know why that's the case and whether they can reassure them, me, and my constituents the hospitals are safe."

Who are the other people and what action is being taken to get rid of them? Greg Clark MP

He said he would also be asking what actions were being taken to improve the management "not just of the trust but of the board", which he said had fallen down in their scrutiny of decisions.

The MP said he would also be discussing the "now-urgent" case for building a new PFI hospital at Pembury.

And he added that "obviously heads have rolled" with the departure of trust chief Rose Gibb, but he said: "The responsibility goes further."

He said: "It clearly wasn't all down to Rose Gibb.

"Who are the other people and what action is being taken to get rid of them?"

Comparing the "scandal" to the level of "train disasters", he said: "This calls for huge lessons to be learned."

Death toll

And he added the Healthcare Commission report said infection control standards had improved, but said: "They need not just to improve, they need to become excellent."

The commission's report said nurses at the trust were too rushed to wash hands and left patients to lie in their own excrement.

The watchdog examined a sample of 50 patients out of a total of 345 to whom various causes of death had been attributed, but who were also known to have had C.difficile, between April 2004 and September 2006.

It concluded that C.difficile - a bacterial infection of the gut which mainly affects the elderly - was definitely or probably the main cause of death for 90 patients.

It was definitely a contributing factor in the deaths of a further 124, and a probable factor in another 55.

On Thursday, medical director Dr Malcolm Stewart said the trust had not been prepared for an outbreak of that size or complexity but said although it was a steep learning curve "lessons were learnt".

He said managers were "trying to juggle with many balls", and added that the trust was changing the way it offered services internally and externally.