Health Bill

I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 35 and 37. MRSA rates have doubled since 1997, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) pointed out. The last time we debated this in the House, the hon. Members for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) and for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) spoke at length about the misreporting of figures. Although current figures suggest that we do not have a massive problem, it is still one that we cannot fully identify in terms of knowing what the true figures are. However, I am not here to lob grenades across the Table by criticising the Government. I want to look at where we are now and how we can move on to improve the situation. I well remember the NHS in the 1970s under a Labour Government, and in the 1980s under a Conservative Administration. The most fearful bug that we had to deal with in those days was klebsiella, which lived on bars of soap. Things are different now. I am not naturally a retrospective person, but in the matter of MRSA one has to be. In the 70s and 80s, hospitals were indisputably much cleaner than they are today. However, it is not just a decline in cleanliness that has brought about MRSA in our hospitals; it is also the result of an over-reliance on antibiotics, increased movement of patients within the hospital estate, centrally imposed targets that pressurise hospital staff and administrators to hot-bed patients by getting a patient into a bed before it has gone cold or has even been cleaned properly, and dirty wards and bathrooms. A combination of those factors causes MRSA in hospitals. There is another factor which causes me, as an ex-nurse, some embarrassment. It is easily preventable. I discussed it with the Minister in Committee and was disappointed to note that it was not addressed in more detail in the draft code of practice. It is the fact that nowadays nurses travel to and from home in their uniforms. We all know that that is the case. How often do we see a nurse outside the school gates picking up her children, going into a nursery to pick up her toddler, or leaning over the vegetable section in a supermarket while getting groceries on her way into work? We cannot blame nurses for that because changing facilities are no longer available as they used to be. One has to ask why that is. One also has to ask on what this casual behaviour of travelling around in nurses’ uniforms is based. Is it based on the premise that nurses believe that the uniform is there to protect them, or doctors, from patients and to keep them clean? If so, that is extremely misguided. The purpose of the uniform is to protect the patient from the nurse or the doctor—the patient who, as a result of being in hospital for procedures or from illness, needs to be protected from anybody who enters their vicinity, including nurses and doctors. My amendments relate directly to that situation and are simple and to the point. Hospital staff with direct responsibility for patients should not place them at risk by wearing their uniforms to and from work. That is wrong, and it is undoubtedly a direct contribution to MRSA in hospitals.