MRSA or Methicillin Resistant Staphlococcus Aureus has attracted a large number of compensation claims particularly when it results in death or health complications. According to reports, MRSA mainly affects vulnerable people including the elderly or the very sick, and people who have severely reduced resistance to infection.
MRSA Action UK recently announced that they will not only assist GPs and patients in deciding where they want to be treated, but will help the new regulator to target hospital trusts who are required to meet the minimum standards set out in the Code of Practice for the Prevention and Control of Health Care Associated Infections.
The group said From April 1st 2009 new powers for the Care Quality Commission will extend to include fines in cases where hospitals are failing to use all their resources to ensure hospitals are free from life-threatening infections.
MRSA is responsible for the deaths of more than 1,000 people every year, with thousands more left severely ill or in worst cases, disabled by the infection. According to industry experts, lawyers have found it hard to win cases because MRSA compensation claims require causation to be established. Without evidence of exactly where, when and how the infection was contracted, winning such cases is almost impossible.
Trusts have onus of proof under safety regulation
Reports show that cases that reached court was almost always related to the way a patient was treated once they got MRSA rather than being about catching MRSA. Lawyers are increasingly abandoning the old clinical negligence argument in favour of Control of Substances Harmful to Health (COSHH), legislation commonly used in industrial disputes.
Under this law, the burden is on the defendant to prove they are meeting the requirements. It requires employers to control exposure to hazardous substances in order to prevent ill health. Leading solicitors firms have revealed that they were now handling dozens of MRSA compensation cases where COSHH was being used in the legal challenge.
Figures show that there have been a few successful compensation settlements, seven involving hospital-acquired infections in England from April 2002 to March 2006 although there was no admission of responsibility for causing MRSA.
Using medical technology could be the answer
According to the Department of Health (DH), the medical technology industry could help take the fight against healthcare acquired infections (HCAIs) like MRSA and C. Diff to the next level. However, industry sources point out that it takes a long time for technology to be designed and adopted by the NHS. The DH recently made a fresh appeal to industry leaders asking them to back efforts aimed at getting rid of potentially-deadly bugs from hospital wards.
Reports suggest that a variety of items are already being developed and tested across Britain including a portable isolation room which can be placed over and around a patient's bed to stop them catching or spreading infection, an overhead air flow machine, and a bed disinfectant chamber.
One of the three main programmes being run by NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (PASA)on behalf of the DH is Design Bugs Out: Organised in conjunction with The Design Council and the Design Business Association, this involves redesigning hospital equipment such as chairs and bedside tables to make them easier to clean and anti-microbial.
The equipments to fight superbug MRSA may not all be good news as industry sources say hospital staff and patients could suffer personal injury and this is likely to see an increase in compensation claims.
