Blackburn Hospital is very committed to reducing the number of MRSA cases and has signed up to the Saving Lives campaign which allows us to monitor and audit all of our cases and practices.
There are a few issues which (during the above monitoring) I feel that I need to set straight. The NICU is not part of the new hospital as inaccurately reported by the beeb. That part of the building is 12 years old.
During one of our audits on handwashing, I found that doctors and nursing staff still have a lot of work to do but have shown an improvement in their practices. The main people who do not wash their hands or use the gels are actually.............
the patients!!!!!! Visitors will also neglect to use the gels or wash hands.
Visitors will use the gels when
told to do so, but why should the nursing staff have to keep chivvying visitors along when there are notices everywhere. If there are only 2 nurses on a busy ward, believe me, they have more than enough to do without policing visitors and getting a load of abuse from them. Over the years I have come to think that visiting should be restricted to next of kin only.
MRSA will never go away but it can be reduced. I believe that Blackburn Hospital is doing its very best to achieve this at the moment. In comparison to other hospitals Blackburn's MRSA rates are not bad at all.
If anyone wants to know about how we audit and the intricate ins and outs of what the powers that be are doing then send me a pm......I'll be more than happy to give you all of the boring detail...

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Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid altogether.
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