DEEP CLEAN AT HOSPITAL HIT BY OUTBREAK OF ‘SUPERBUG’
No cases of infection as patients relocated
A HOSPITAL building had to be deep cleaned and patients relocated following a ‘superbug’ outbreak.
Every bed and piece of equipment in West Building, at the Royal Stoke, had to be cleaned after cases of colonisation by carbapenemase producing enterobacteriaceae (CPE) were detected.
While enterobacteriaceae are found naturally in the human gut, CPE is considered a health threat as it is resistant to some types of antibiotic.
Fortunately no cases of infection have been seen at West Building and no patients have come to harm.
But members of the trust board at University Hospitals of North Midlands, which runs the Royal Stoke, acknowledged the ‘immense’ disruption caused by the outbreak, which began in late September and was still ongoing as of Wednesday.
Ann-marie Riley, chief nurse and director of infection prevention and control, told the board that a ‘significant’ piece of work had been undertaken to tackle the CPE outbreak.
She said: “It’s bacteria that lives in the gut of animals and humans. You can either be colonised, which means you’ve got it on your skin or in your gut, or it’s an infection, where it’s in your blood, a wound, or urine.
“All the cases we’ve had are colonisation – we don’t have any evidence of any infections. But it’s an outbreak that’s been ongoing since the end of September, and is still ongoing.
“We have regular outbreak meetings that involve Public Health England and NHS Improvement, and the local CCG as well, and it’s a very significant action plan relating to this outbreak.
“Every ward had patients moved off, and every piece of equipment and every bed was deep cleaned. Every room was emptied and deep cleaned, and then people would be returned to the cleaned beds.”
Ms Riley said the trust would be doing some work on ‘broader learning’ from the outbreak, in order to prevent similar incidents happening in future.
Non-exeutive director Gary Crowe welcomed the fact that UHNM would be looking to learn from the incident.
He said: “I just want to acknowledge the significant disruption this must have caused – it sounds like it was immense. I’m sure there have been some people moving heaven and earth to deal with this incident. I think we should record our appreciation.
“It just emphasises that we must learn from this. I’m pleased to hear about the broader learning, as you don’t want repeats of this kind of impact, given all the strains we’ve got.”