(2) how many servicemen injured serving in (a) Iraq and (b) Afghanistan who contracted viral infections while receiving treatment for their injuries in UK civilian hospitals have subsequently had limbs amputated as a result of the infection; and if he will make a statement.
[holding answers 22 and 23 March 2007]: If an injury sustained in theatre warrants the immediate removal of a limb, the operation will be conducted under field conditions. Service personnel injured while on operation in Iraq or Afghanistan who require further medical treatment are usually aero-medically evacuated to Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham. Once evacuated to the UK, the patient will undergo detailed assessment by the hospital clinical team and further medical treatment, if required, will be carried out. We are aware of no cases of service personnel contracting an infection while in theatre, in transit, or as a military patient being treated in Birmingham that has subsequently led to a limb amputation.
University Hospital Birmingham (UHB) has robust procedures in place to minimise the risk of infection and counter its effects in both its civilian and military patients. UHB does collect overall infection rates, and in total for all patients, it has had 93 MRSA bacteraemia reports across the Queen Elizabeth and Selly Oak hospital sites from April 2006 to the end of February 2007. This equates to 0.09 per cent. of the around 100,000 (mostly civilian) in-patients and day cases treated in this time period and only 0.02 per cent. of the total 500,000 of all patients treated in this period. UHB’s MRSA bacteraemia reports have reduced by 32 per cent. in the last two years.
Neither the UHB nor the Ministry of Defence holds a separate database or a record of military patients who have reported MRSA or other viral infections. Therefore, the precise number of military patients diagnosed with MRSA or viral infections in NHS hospitals is not available centrally. This information could be obtained only by searching through individual medical records with that person’s permission, and this could be provided only at disproportionate cost.