Health Protection Agency Coordination and publication of providers' information on healthcare associated infections

Accepted.
Public Health England, which since April 2013 has taken on the functions of the Health Protection Agency, is working together with the Health and Social Care Information Centre to coordinate the collection, analysis and publication of information in relation to Healthcare Associated Infections.
This includes a number of on-going activities: exploration of linkage of Public Health England Healthcare Associated Infections patient-level surveillance data with Hospital Episode Statistics data for enhanced epidemiological analyses; exploration of linkage of Public Health England Healthcare Associated Infections surveillance data with the death registrations (for mortality trends) to improve understanding of causality; Public Health England facilitation of voluntary surveillance within the Infections in Critical Care Quality Improvement Programme to increase the knowledge and evidence base, leading to quality improvement; a review of priority categories for Surgical Site Infection surveillance to inform strategic development and support needs of local users; taking a key role in the finalisation, roll-out and on-going development of the new Data Capture System to incorporate and support the above- mentioned surveillances activities. Public Health England is also working with trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups to facilitate the Post Infection Review process for MRSA.
Additionally, Public Health England is providing advice and support to the Care Quality Commission in its regulatory work to develop its new surveillance model for the construction of quality indicators.

UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is now the organisation that collects and publishes data on hospital and community acquired infections by NHS organisation. Data is available for some infections back to 2013 and 2017 for others.

Public Health England publishes as routine mandatory surveillance data on Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Meticillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) bloodstream infections and Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) at the level of each NHS acute trust. Trusts report these data to a web-based data capture system. Public Health England is providing expertise to support the development of a new integrated and future-proofed data capture system for its mandatory healthcare associated infection surveillance programmes which can be used by all parts of the healthcare system. Public Health England also provides expertise to support NHS organisations reporting positive cases of Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection in undertaking a Post Infection Review for each case. A Post Infection Review is undertaken to identify how a case occurred, actions which can prevent a reoccurrence and the organisation best placed to ensure improvements are made. Public Health England has successfully liaised with NHS England to refine the Post Infection Review process from April 2014 so that cases of Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection can be more accurately assigned to either an acute trust, Clinical Commissioning Group or ‘third party’ acknowledging the complex nature of cases.

In order to assess patient outcomes, Public Health England has successfully linked data both on bloodstream infections and surgical site infection (hip replacement and other types of surgery) to the Office for National Statistics death registration data Before the end of March 2015, Public Health England will assume responsibility for producing mortality data for cases of Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection and Clostridium difficile infection by linking Public Health England mandatory surveillance data with death registration data. This data will be published on an annual basis.

This recommendation was accepted by the Government.

In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government said that Public Health England was working together with the Health and Social Care Information Centre to coordinate the collection, analysis and publication of information in relation to healthcare associated infections.

In the February 2015 Culture Change report, the Government referred to Public Health England publishing routine mandatory surveillance data on certain infections; providing expertise to support the development of a new integrated data capture system; and providing expertise to support NHS organisations regarding positive cases of MRSA in undertaking post-infection reviews.