Health Bill

I wanted to speak on three parts of the Bill, but as so many Labour Members seem so agitated about the Bill, and want to speak about it, I shall confine my remarks to one part of it, and to a few moments. I want to talk about hospital-acquired infections and the code of practice. Would the Minister consider putting a statutory obligation on the code of practice? I ask that because a number of practices in hospitals are bringing about hospital-acquired infections, and that requires more than guidelines. Many guidelines and publications have been issued over the years, but as some hon. Members have said, our general election policy, the cleaner hospitals campaign, was probably the right way to go about things. Staphylococcus aureus, the bug at the root of hospital-acquired infections, has now become vancomycin resistant, too. It is a nasty little bug. Most people here will not yet have eaten this evening, so I shall not go into great detail about it, but it is very vicious in hospitals. What will the hospitals move on to from vancomycin? Heaven only knows. Vancomycin was held back because of complications caused by renal infections and other renal problems when it was given. The fact that MRSA is now becoming VRSA is extremely worrying to people who work in health care. Hot-bedding seems to be one of the main problems. I never thought that I would say, ““In my day””, but when I was a nurse I was a good nurse, because I was terrified to be anything else. My matron was a good matron, and when she walked down the ward I shook in my boots, because if our ward was not spotless, and the bedside lockers and tables were not clean, we were in trouble—and we did not have MRSA in the hospital. Let me give the House an example. When a patient went home or, unfortunately, died, the bed and the bedside cabinet would be cleaned down with chlorhexidine solution, as would the bedside table, the window sills, the floors and the metal on the bed. Everything would be stripped out. Now, when a patient passes away in hospital or is discharged home, the bed gets a quick wipe down and the next patient is in. A hospital administrator told me recently that the reason for that practice was targets: the hospital had to meet targets and get patients through quickly. I was told that there was a patient with MRSA at the end of the ward that I was standing in. Unfortunately, the administrator had not been allowed to close down the ward, or have it barrier-nursed or sterilised. Why not? Because the hospital management had told him that they had a target to meet.