Deep clean, but still up to our necks in bullshit

Our gormless gawping prime minister Gordon Brown seems to have learnt a lot from his predecessor Tony Blair, he is continuing with the same gimmicky superficial policies that make it appear he is doing something important, when in fact his ideas are nothing more than half arsed turd polishing. It is most amazing that so many people are educationally challenged enough to fall for this hollow sham.

"NHS hospitals are to be ordered by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to conduct a "deep clean" to tackle the spread of infections such as "superbug" MRSA."

I have heard of better ideas from a filleted herring. The media has never really got to grips with the issues surrounding hospital acquired infection, or in the words of the Daily Mail 'super bugs'. The squeeze on the number of front line beds available has been rather notable in recent New Labour years, strangely it is not mentioned in the media and it has rather important implications for infection control:

"1999/2000 135,080
2000/1 135,794
2001/2 136,583
2002/3 136,679
2003/4 137,247
2004/5 136,184
2005/6 133,033"

If we choose to look at the actual science and evidence, as opposed to the illiterate squealing in our domestic media, then it becomes rather obvious that Gordon Brown's big clean is nothing more than a massive publicity stunt which will do absolutely bugger all to combat hospital acquired infection.

The Dutch have been pretty good at containing MRSA, methicillin resistant staphyococcus aureus, and it hasn't been related to 'deep cleans'. Their policy revolves around:

isolating and screening high-risk patient groups

screening low-risk groups
strict isolation of carriers
treatment of people carrying MRSA

This brings us back to the over stretched NHS front line and the shrinking number of beds available, as this has rather significant knock on effects on our ability to 'isolate high risk groups' and to 'isolate carriers'. Most people working on the front line will tell you that it is routine in many hospitals for known MRSA carriers to be nursed in open wards with patients who are known not to be MRSA carriers, it is therefore no wonder that MRSA is not being contained in the UK. The excessive pressure to move patients from ward to ward far too quickly without infection control being respected is arguably the biggest reason for MRSA's success in the UK, and the government continues to make this situation worse with more and more targets.

"However, the main cause of community-acquired MRSA is still selective antibiotic pressure. Patients and parents still pressure physicians to give an antibiotic when it isn't an appropriate choice,"

The unfair pressure put on doctors by patients to prescribe antibiotics is also another reason for MRSA's successful spread, this is rarely mentioned in the media though. In this way an all round clinical approach to halt the spread of MRSA is ignored, as short sighted political pressures drive the target-based system.

In conclusion we are now left with a completely haphazard uncoordinated approach towards hospital acquired infection that is doomed to fail. There is a massive over-emphasis on unproven quackery from infection control fascists, while basic steps that are proven to contain MRSA are not taken. Gordon Brown and his cronies continue to ramble on about superificial gimmicks like 'deep cleans' and 'matrons', without stopping to think what the root cause of these problems is.

It's no coincidence that there's an election coming up, El Gordo wants to move attention away from the government's centralised profligacy, he doesn't want you to know that over 25% of the NHS' budget is spent coming up with more useless glossy gimmicks. It just goes to show how damaging it is for the NHS to be the subject of ridiculous political whims. The politicians should realise that a good health care system must rise above the pandering to short term political objectives, it must be driven by long term holistic thinking based on solid evidence.

If Gordon Brown wasn't a greedy power hungry maniac then there would be a small chance that politicians would stop tinkering with the health service in this short sighted manner, unfortunately he is and he intends to fight the election on health. What a record New Labour have on health, it's a bit like fighting the election on Iraq, PFI/CFISSA/ISTC/WIC/PBC/C&B/NPfIT/MMC/MTAS, need I go on?