The government’s Chief Nursing Officer, Dame Christine Beasley, has said that openness about hospital-acquired infections has been ‘key’ in reducing Healthcare Associated Infections (HCAIs).

Dame Christine was speaking at a Department of Health conference in London, which was attended by international experts on hospital-acquired infections.

She told the delegates that surveillance was vital to ‘driving down infections’ – and that publishing information about HCAIs online at NHS Choice empowered patients ‘to vote with their feet’ if a hospital underperformed in its targets.

Dame Christine also said the policy of openness enabled the health service to ‘take appropriate action’ in such cases.

She went on to say that tackling HCAIs was a challenge for health services globally.

‘That is why we have invited the leading experts from across the European Union and the World Health Organization to both learn from them – and to showcase the success of our mandatory surveillance and disclosure of infections systems.’

Health Minister Ann Keen said that the whole of the NHS should take ‘enormous credit’ for rising to the challenge of tackling HCAIs.

‘NHS staff responded to the brave step of being completely open on healthcare associated infections and their hard work has made hospitals cleaner and safer for patients,’ she said.

Figures show that as many as 74 per cent of patients take into consideration cleanliness and the rate of HCAIs at a particular hospital when choosing where to go for treatment.

The conference heard that England now has one of the most sophisticated procedures in the world for monitoring infections such as Clostridium difficile and MRSA – infection rates of C. difficile have as a result been reduced by more than 70 per cent, while MRSA infection rates have fallen by more than 30 per cent.

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