C diff myth

Published on Sunday 5 July 2009 21:56

YOUR report of 1 July once again recycled the myth that C difficile cases are related to the cleanliness of hospitals. While clean hospitals are vitally important for many reasons, around nine out of ten cases of C diff-associated disease are believed to be caused by antibiotic prescribing.

Some people carry the C diff bacteria around in their gut, and it causes them no harm. But when one of these individuals is ill, a range of antibiotics may be used to fight infection. The antibiotics inhibit the "good" bacteria, allowing the C diff to flare up. That makes more targeted antibiotic prescribing essential.

Printing a league table of lab results without interpretation is meaningless. These simply reflect the number of samples sent for checking. As hospitals test more, they are likely to find more positives. People who are carrying C diff but are not unwell will show up as a "case", and patients who are tested several times may show up as several cases.

Tackling healthcare-associated infections is a top priority throughout the NHS. At national and local level a great deal of hard work is going into reducing infection rates. It is acceptable to name individual hospitals in the cause of transparency but for The Scotsman to state that these hospitals are somehow therefore "shamed" involves a complete misunderstanding of the statistics and simply encourages others to misinterpret the figures. The public deserve a considered and accurate analysis if they are to be able to hold us effectively to account and your correspondent did not provide that.

IAN MULLEN

Chairman

NHS Forth Valley

Stirling