To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many reports there were of antibiotic resistant E. coli in the NHS in (a) England, (b) each region and (c) each strategic health authority in each of the last six years.[128921]
Under a voluntary reporting scheme, the Health Protection Agency receives reports of E. coli blood stream infections with their susceptibility to antibiotics from microbiology laboratories in England and Wales. Gentamicin resistance is monitored because it is used to treat the more serious E. coli infections.Table I shows data on gentamicin resistance for England and Wales from 1997 to 1999. Data on gentamicin resistance in England, broken down by region, is available only from 2000. This is shown in table 2. Data by strategic health authority is not available.
| Table 1: Escherichia coli blood stream infections resistant to gentamicin: England and Wales, 1997 to 1999 | |
| Number resistant | |
| 1997 | 132 |
| 1998 | 161 |
| 1999 | 175 |
| Table 2: Escherichia coli blood stream infections resistant to gentamicin: England by region. 2000 to 2002 | |||
| Number resistant | |||
| Region | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 |
| Northern and Yorkshire1 | 12 | 28 | – |
| North East | – | – | 8 |
| Northern and Humberside | – | – | 45 |
| East Midlands | 21 | 6 | 24 |
| Eastern | 24 | 48 | 58 |
| London | 45 | 30 | 67 |
| South East | 37 | 54 | 64 |
| South West | 17 | 20 | 31 |
| West Midlands | 12 | 15 | 108 |
| North West | 13 | 17 | 36 |
| Total | 181 | 218 | 441 |
1 Northern and Yorkshire was divided into two regions—North East and Yorkshire and Humberside—in 2002.
Source:
Health Protection Agency—Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many reports of MRSA outside hospitals there were in (a) England, (b) each region and (c) each strategic health authority in each of the last six years.[128922]
A new national mandatory surveillance system for healthcare associated infection started with reporting of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) blood stream infections (bacteraemias), in April 2001. All acute trusts in England now collect this information and results for the first year of this scheme (April 2001 to March 2002) were published by individual trust in the Communicable Disease Report Weekly on 20 June 2002. They are available at www.phls.co.uk/ publications/cdr/PDFfiles/2002/cdr2502.pdf.Information for 2002–03 will be published shortly.The data do not include information on where the infection was acquired (hospital or elsewhere). However, the majority of cases are acquired in hospital.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of urinary tract infections resistant to antibiotics were recorded in the NHS in (a) England, (b) each region and (c) each strategic health authority in each of the last six years.[128920]
This information is not held centrally.