Hospitals: Infectious Diseases

(asked on 7th March 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of the findings in the article by Guest, J. et.al entitled Modelling the annual NHS costs and outcomes attributable to healthcare-associated infections in England, published in the British medical journal on 22 January 2020, on (a) the cost to the NHS, (b) the number of patient deaths, (c) the number of occupied hospital bed days and (d) days of absenteeism by health and care professionals due to hospital-acquired infections.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 13th March 2023

The Government is aware of the findings in the article by Guest, J. et al. 'Modelling the annual NHS costs and outcomes attributable to healthcare-associated infections in England'. Estimates of the cost to the National Health Service, the number of patient deaths, the number of occupied hospital bed days and days of absenteeism by health and care professionals due to healthcare-associated infections are welcome and inform the Government’s assessment of the cost-effectiveness of policy options.

The UK Health Security Agency monitors the numbers of certain infections that occur in healthcare settings through routine surveillance programmes and advises on how to prevent and control infection in establishments such as hospitals, care homes and schools.

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