Sue Doughty congratulates Royal Surrey on improvements

4.24.10pm UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 19th Apr 2005

Following today's visit by Charles Kennedy to Guildford, Sue Doughty said:

"While there is room for further improvement at the Royal Surrey, there has been tremendous progress in A&E and in reducing the number of cases of MRSA.

"When I was first elected in 2001, trolley waits in corridors were the norm. The hospital has completely changed and I have received many letters in praise of the work of the doctors and nurses at the hospital.

"Similarly, there has been a reduction in the number of infections at the hospital and it is important that this is recognised. I would like to pay tribute to all at the hospital who have worked so hard on these very difficult problems. I hope that this improvement will continue."

Misrepresentation of MRSA figures at the RSCH

Commenting on the misrepresentations of MRSA figures at the RSCH by a Conservative advertisement in the Surrey Advertiser, Sue Doughty said:

"I am extremely concerned that the reporting on the numbers of MRSA cases at the Royal Surrey County Hospital has been inaccurate and ill-informed.

"I have been liaising with the hospital over the last three years on MRSA and can confirm that in 2002/3 there were 35 cases of MRSA bacteraemias. However, in 2003/4 this was reduced to 28 and the figures for 2004/5 up to November compared with the same period in 2003/4 indicate that the hospital is on track to achieve a further reduction of 24%.

"The Conservatives' recent advertisement claimed that there was a significant increase between 2001/2 and 2003/4. These figures are highly misleading, as in the intervening period official statistics began to include patients entering the hospital with community acquired bacteraemias. This means that the figures for 2001/2 are not comparable to those for 2003/4.

"The management and staff at the hospital have put an enormous amount of effort into reducing the number of cases of MRSA and misrepresentation of figures is not good for patients and not good for staff. A new infection control nurse has been added to the team, alcohol gel for cleaning hands has been introduced at all beds and many other infection control improvement measures have been introduced. This has resulted in the Royal Surrey County Hospital having a low incidence of MRSA compared to other local hospitals.

"I will continue to monitor these figures and continue to support the hospital in their efforts to reduce the number of MRSA cases."