Turning on hospital taps ‘could have saved lives’

‘Investment in infection control’

DEATHS could have been prevented at Scotland’s crisis-hit superhospital if staff had carried out basic infection control tasks, an expert has said.

Flushing out taps is known to prevent infection but there was no record of this being done at parts of Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital during an inspection.

Officials from Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), the NHS standards watchdog, visited the hospital in January this year.

Their report found the health board had not kept proper records on its infection prevention measures. Staff did not know whose job it was to ensure taps, baths and shower heads were flushed.

The failures were ‘either total incompetence or dereliction of duty’, according to Professor Hugh Pennington, an infection expert from the University of Aberdeen.

He said: ‘If these basic steps had been taken, some of the deaths at this hospital could have been prevented.’

Patients, including ten-yearold Milly Main, died at the hospital.

Milly contracted an infection in 2017 while recovering from leukaemia at the Royal Hospital for Children on the £842million site.

Her mother said she was ‘100 per cent’ certain that contaminated water caused Milly’s fatal infection.

Despite instructions from

Scotland’s former chief medical officer dating back to 2013 that all hospital taps must be flushed for at least a minute once a day and records kept, the HIS report shows NHS

Greater Glasgow and Clyde failed to do so.

The inspectors warned: ‘We saw evidence that domestic services staff were to carry out flushing regimes. However, our inspection findings did not assure us that this is being carried out. There was a lack of clarity around who should be carrying this out.’

A public inquiry has been announced into building defects and patient deaths at the superhospital.

Professor Pennington said: ‘While I welcome a public inquiry, my concern is that it could take years and we need to be reassured patients are protected now.’

His concerns were echoed by University College Dublin Professor Jack Lambert, a specialist in infectious diseases, who said: ‘Tap flushing costs nothing to do but it prevents infections.

‘These tragedies are the consequence of not putting the proper investment in the management of infection control.’

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘It’s clear we need an inquiry but it’s even more clear that we need reassurance the place is safe now.’ A spokesman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: ‘The report highlighted a number of areas we needed to address. Work got under way immediately to action the requirements.’

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman put NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde into special measures and set up a board to control its infection prevention methods.