Reasons for Medical Tourism 5

UK media is reporting on a new report which suggest that a "superbug" outbreak in hospitals in kent in the UK may have killed as many as 331 patients in one year as a result of poor hygeine an lax standards of care and management. It reports that althought managers knew of the issues, they did nothing or little to resolve them.

The report makes grim reading for the government as it suggests that management focus on hitting targets resulted in them failing to set aside resource to manage the infection problems.

The statistics for infections within the NHS make for very grim reading:

55,634 people over the age of 65 were infected with Clostridium diffiile last year in England.

1,170 patients were infected at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Hospital Trust between April 2004 and September 2006.

331 the number of patients who died where c.diff was the main cause or at least a likely contributing factor in their death.

50 million pounds of extra funding to fight hospital infections was announced in July this year by ministers.

45 per cent of hospital trusts reported that Government targets got in the way of implementing infection control.

3 per cent of adults carrying clostridium difficile harmlessly in their gut.

1 billion pounds is the estimated cost of healthcare associated infections each year to the NHS.

For increasing numbers of UK patients, the fear of these super bug infections is enough to get them to consider surgery in the private sector or abroad. Many enquiries for european countries and orthopaedic hospitals include references to infections and fear relating to the quality of the NHS.

Two parallel events are taking place here: fear of superbug infections is also leading UK citizens to question the overall quality and effectiveness of the nationalised health system. An increasingly common exclamation is that the system is broken.