Hospitals: Infectious Diseases

(asked on 10th March 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to combat the reported rise of carbapenem-resistant bacteria in secondary care.


Answered by
Lord Bethell Portrait
Lord Bethell
This question was answered on 18th March 2020

Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) are carbapenem-resistant infections with the ability to transfer resistance to different bacterial species. Public Health England conducts monitoring and surveillance of these infections and publishes toolkits to support acute and non-acute organisations to prevent and control the spread of CPE.

The Government recognises that identifying where carbapenemase-producing Gram-negative infections occur, and acting to prevent them, is essential to maintain the effectiveness of our most important antibiotics. Work is underway to add these infections to the list of notifiable diseases as part of our national action plan for antimicrobial resistance.

NHS England and NHS Improvement continue to work to reduce the burden of all healthcare-associated infections and is tasked with delivering the Government’s ambition to halve all healthcare associated Gram-negative blood stream infections by 2023-24.

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