Call for isolation rooms to minimise MRSA

MORE ISOLATION rooms to minimise the spread of MRSA infections within intensive care units (ICU) in hospitals, have been recommended in a report published by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.

Large differences in the availability and quality of single rooms at hospitals to isolate patients with MRSA were found in the Surveillance of MRSA in ICU 2010 report.

Just four of the 33 intensive care units surveyed could successfully isolate all of their MRSA patients. Four units had no single rooms available for isolation. Less than half of the single rooms available had anterooms which help to stop the spread of infection while all single rooms had sinks, the report found.

Levels of MRSA were higher in the intensive care units that dealt with the most seriously ill patients compared with units that dealt with less serious cases, the report found.

The prevalence of MRSA in the intensive care units which deal with the most seriously ill patients has decreased by 2 per cent since 2008, to 11.4 per cent.

However less than 1 per cent of the cases of MRSA in intensive care units were acquired within the ICUs, the report found.

More acute patients were at risk of contracting the superbug before being admitted to intensive care units, the report noted.

The report noted that it was difficult to control MRSA when a high population have it on admission.

While all patients were screened on admission to ICU, there was a large delay in the diagnosis of MRSA, which can take up to 48 hours, the report found.

It recommended an improvement in the time taken to diagnose patients with MRSA and an improvement in isolation room resources to minimise transmission of MRSA in intensive care units.