IPS welcomes online infection rating plans

The Infection Prevention Society has welcomed the recent announcement on weekly reporting of key infections.

Tracey Cooper, Vice President of IPS said “It will be important that trusts devote sufficient resources to ensure that meaningful information is available without any additional burden being placed on infection prevention and control staff. Infections sometimes take time to confirm via laboratory testing, therefore it is essential that everyone understands data reported weekly will be subject to change. Additional confirmatory testing results are sometimes required, and may lead to amendments of data posted in previous weeks.

“If this information is to be easily understood and provide reassurance for the public, it is crucial that clear explanatory information must be available to support the data, so that both staff and the public are able to understand the information and be aware of the limitations of data which is reported weekly.”

Weekly MRSA and C difficile rates will be displayed on the data.gov.uk site, beginning in July and will be archived online for three months. Other infections, such as E.coli, may eventually be added. Data from March to May for many hospitals is already available.

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