Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 52A:"Page 9, line 27, at end insert ““or of being made susceptible, or more susceptible, to them””" The noble Lord said: I will deal with Amendment No. 56, which is in this group, when the noble Earl moves that amendment. I turn now to the government amendments in this group. Amendment No. 52A would simply align the language used in the rest of the Bill with the amended definition of healthcare-associated infection. Amendments Nos. 52A, 56A and 56B are important if the code of practice is to work as well as possible. The code should not ignore infections simply because the infectious agent arrives in the healthcare environment along with the patient. Although Amendments Nos. 56A and 56B are technical drafting amendments, they are none the less important as they alter the definition of healthcare-associated infection in the Bill and relate to the scope of the code of practice. It is essential that there should be no doubt that the code can include requirements concerning infections caused or exacerbated by organisms already present on or in a patient’s body at the time of their entry into the healthcare environment. An example would be bacteria that are already present on a patient’s skin at the time of their admission to hospital and which infect a patient during or after surgery. We had thought that the definition used by the Health Bill included such infections, so that the Secretary of State would have been able to include requirements relating to them in the code of practice. On further reflection, we have realised that the definition used is capable of another interpretation. This focuses on the patient coming into contact with an infecting agent. Therefore, it would exclude infections caused by bacteria present on the patient’s own skin that subsequently infected the patient as a result of the provision of healthcare. This would mean that requirements relating to the prevention and control of these infections would be outside the scope of the code of practice. We have therefore tabled Amendments Nos. 56A and 56B to make quite sure that infections arising from micro-organisms present on or in the patient’s body prior to the person’s entry into the healthcare system are included in the definition of healthcare-associated infection used by the Health Bill. As I have said, Amendment No. 52A would simply align the language used in the rest of the Bill with the amended definition. We want healthcare bodies to take measures to minimise the risk of these infections, and the code of practice should be able to require them to do so. I urge the Committee to accept Amendments Nos. 52A, 56A and 56B. I beg to move.