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Cdifficile infections at an all-time low at Sheffield Hospitals

Health professionals have reassured patients that cases of the C. difficile bacterium are at an all-time low at the city’s adult hospitals including the Northern General Hospital and Royal Hallamshire.

Despite treating over a million patients every year, staff have reduced the number of cases of C. difficile by over 80% in the past 5 years and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals now has one of the lowest rates of C. difficile infections in the country for a Trust of its size.

Dr Christine Bates, Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said:

“Thanks to the tremendous hard work of all our staff, over the past five years we have seen an 80% drop in the number of patients who have C. difficile and so in terms of the chances of acquiring this infection it has never been safer for patients to come to our hospitals.”

“Our rates of C. difficile are currently at the lowest they have ever been for a decade, despite treating over 1 million patients a year. To date we have had a 42% reduction in the number of cases compared to last year alone.”

“Rigorous infection prevention and control has always been a priority and our staff work very hard to limit the chances of patients being exposed to or developing infections. We have stringent cleaning and infection control measures in place to ensure any spread of C. difficile is limited and last year we invested an additional £1million in adopting the very latest disinfectants, deep cleaning methods and staff training.”

“We also adopt an approach of early intervention which means as soon as any sign of the bacteria appears in a patient on a ward, we initiate monitoring, auditing and where appropriate enhanced cleaning, which we call ‘surveillance’. This means we very quickly review any suspected cases and check that the ward environment and staff practices are up to standard. In most instances the surveillance reveals that cases are not connected or acquired due to cross infection on a ward and that infection prevention and control practices on the wards are robust. There are different strains of C. difficile, so by testing each case we can identify if cases are related or caused by cross infection fairly easily.

Testing for the strain also enables us to make sure that cases are not the start of a cluster of infections and if necessary put measures in place to prevent this happening. The early surveillance system is evidence of good practice and by intervening early, rather than waiting until an obvious outbreak is occurring, we have achieved a dramatic reduction in the number of cases.”

“No wards are currently closed because of C. difficile at either the Northern General or Hallamshire Hospitals. C. difficile is not a virus; it is a species of bacteria that commonly lives harmlessly in the gut – up to 20% of patients may be carrying it on admission to hospital and many people live with it on a daily basis without suffering any ill effects. C. difficile is also rarely a primary cause of death. C. difficile related diarrhoea, which is often one of the symptoms experienced by patients with C.difficile infection, occurs when the organism begins to produce toxin - this most commonly happens because patients are given antibiotics for another condition such as pneumonia. This is why using antibiotics wisely is important but for many patients they are essential.

We take infection prevention and control extremely seriously and despite the on-going reductions in cases of C. difficile we continue to look at all possible ways of further enhancing what we do. This includes considering the benefits of new equipment, research and best practice from around the world.”

We also encourage patients and visitors to play a big part in helping to keep infection out of our hospitals by ensuring they wash their hands when entering and exiting our wards and departments."