One patient in every hospital ward on average hit by HAI, report reveals
Acute hospitals have to deal with an estimated 55,500 Healthcare associated infections a year
Healthcare associated infections (HAIs) are a “significant burden” on the NHS in Scotland, with a new report showing that on average one patient in every ward in every hospital is affected.
Acute hospitals have to deal with an estimated 55,500 HAIs a year - meaning an estimated one in 22 patients develops that kind of infection.
The figures, in the National Point Prevalence survey for 2016, are “significantly down” from 2011, when an estimated one in 20 patients developed the bugs while in hospital.
The most recent survey showed one in nine (11.4%) patients in intensive care units had an HAI - significantly higher than the 4% of medical patients and 6.5% of surgical patients.
The report concluded: “HAI remains a significant burden in Scotland; a greater burden than any other communicable disease.
“On average, there is one patient in every ward in every hospital at all times with HAI and there are an estimated 55,500 HAIs each year in acute adult patients in Scottish hospitals.”
While 4.5% of adults in acute hospitals had an HAI, the survey also found 2.3% (one in 50) of those receiving non-acute hospital care were affected, along with one in 30 (3.4%) of paediatric patients.
A total of 527 HAIs were found in 497 acute adult inpatients during the 2016 survey.
Almost half of HAIs were found to be either a urinary tract infection (UTI) or pneumonia while one in six were surgical site infections.
The report said: “The population has changed and the risks in healthcare have too.
“The patient population is older and sicker in comparison to five years ago and the most common HAI (UTI and pneumonia) reflect this population at risk.”
In addition, antibiotic prescribing in hospitals was found to be significantly higher than in 2011, with this having serious implications for the threat of antibiotic resistance.
In 2016, 35.7% of adult acute patients were receiving at least one antibiotic at the time of the survey, compared to 33.2% five years earlier.
Professor Jacqui Reilly, lead consultant for healthcare associated infections, antimicrobial resistance and infection prevention control at Health Protection Scotland, said: “Healthcare associated infections remain a public health threat across all care settings.
“The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has recently confirmed that these infections represent the highest burden of all communicable diseases monitored in Europe.
“Health Protection Scotland will develop national programmes to tackle these new threats and work with NHS colleagues to preserve antibiotics for future use.
“We will particularly focus on those broader spectrum ones which are last-resort antibiotics, as when these stop working there are no new antibiotics in the pipeline to treat many of these new infection types we are seeing.”