Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will issue guidance to hospitals so that a case of E.coli bacteria triggers the procedures that would be followed if a case of MRSA were discovered.

The management of individual cases of E.coli bloodstream infections is the responsibility of local infection prevention and control specialists. However, the Department has asked its expert Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infections to consider the options for reducing the number of E.coli infections, which are not always hospital acquired.