(De Montford University, Leichester, UK) Patients recovering
from surgery get infections far more often than is being
reported, a new study led by De Montfort University has found.
Infection prevention specialists are now calling on the
Department of Health to bring in a clear and standardized system
for hospitals to try to identify the true scale of surgical
infections. They say a study of the way in which NHS hospital
trusts in England has shown "worrying inconsistencies" between
hospitals in how they defined surgical site infections and how
rigorously they looked for them. As a result, published
infection rates for hospitals do not always give a true picture.
The reasons hospitals gave for not submitting data was that the
surveillance system was flawed and unwieldy and they didn't
trust the system. Their paper, published today in the Journal of
Hospital Infection, casts further doubt on the reliability of
the national surgical site infection surveillance scheme in
England. Lead researcher Professor Judith