According to the BBC, five elderly patients died following the outbreak in a ward of the hospital in October 2009. However, a report by the NHS Tayside has identified a number of shortcomings at the hospital and suggests that several improvements should be made.
One of the key points identified was that the hospital had issues with hand hygiene in the month before the outbreak took place. The report said that an audit of the ward had indicated that hand hygiene compliance on the ward dropped to 85% from 100% the previous months.
However, the report also said that there were no problems identified with cleaning the ward before, during or after the outbreak.
Speaking about the report, a spokeswoman for NHS Tayside stated that the trust had chosen to publish the report to the public the circumstances surrounding the outbreak. She stated,
“The report notes how complex the transmission of C.diff (Clostridium Difficile) is in a hospital environment.
“No one cause has been identified but the NHS Tayside is determined to strive to improve and minimise the risk of any outbreak occurring in the future.”
Hand hygiene has been identified as a possible cause of the outbreak as this is the most common way in which the infection is spread. However, the trust should be commended for not just attributing it to this one statistic and instead taking the time to try to identify other possible causes. This displays a conscious effort to ensure that a high standard of care is in place across the hospital and comply with their duty of care to their patients and to try and identify and control any spread of infection which may result in injury or death.
