Care homes need MRSA strategy

Despite studies repeatedly reporting that residents are at higher risk, reviewers from the Cochrane Institute found no high quality research focusing on infection control interventions in nursing homes.

‘Many different ways of preventing the spread of MRSA have been studied, particularly in hospitals,’ they said. ‘However, we found no studies that looked at ways of preventing the spread of MRSA in nursing homes for older people.’

Close living proximity, use of antibiotics, the presence of pressure sores and indwelling devices all made nursing home residents more vulnerable to infection, they warned.

The reviewers said that although not all infection control policies used in hospital settings could be applied to nursing homes, the same principles of hand hygiene should be adhered to.

In a separate review, another group of reviewers found that interventions to promote hand washing could reduce episodes of diarrhoea by about a third.

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