Care home gets deep clean

A care home underwent a hospital-style deep clean after two elderly residents contracted the Clostridium difficile bug before they died, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) revealed.

The clean-up - an unprecedented measure for care homes in Leicestershire - was ordered after medical reports on the deceased raised concerns of an outbreak.

The case has prompted the local HPA to begin development of an electronic database to issue warnings when multiple infections are detected in residential and nursing homes.

Dr Philip Monk, consultant in health protection for the HPA, said: "Clostridium difficile is an increasing and emerging problem in nursing and residential care and these are elderly and vulnerable patients. Clearly clostridium difficile in any health care setting is a problem and we must take it seriously.

"We will be doing it (deep cleaning) in the future. We have found it seems to work in NHS settings."

There is no evidence that the bacterium was a contributory factor in either death. It was the fact that two cases were discovered at the Quorn Orchards residential home within such a short period of time, understood to be about one month, that caused concern.

Older people are most at risk from infection, with the majority of cases occurring in people over the age of 65. However, residents in nursing and residential homes are often too frail to take part in the procedures, such as hand-washing, used to combat the spread of bugs such as C-diff and MRSA.

Dr Monk added: "The important thing here is that the system of reporting and monitoring worked. That's why people don't need to be worried. We are setting up an electronic database. We will recommend that where there are more than one case and they are reasonably close together, it's possible that the environmental contamination from one case has led to the development of another."

A spokeswoman said: "Leicestershire County Council has worked with the Health Protection Agency and the Commission for Social Care Inspection to advise the Quorn Orchards residential home, following the suspected transmission of Clostridium Difficile there. The home, which is an independently-run residential care home, has co-operated fully and all recommendations have been implemented.

Quorn Orchards Care Home, an independent care home with 30 places for dementia suffers, would not comment on the recent C-diff cases. But one member of staff said: "We are really fine now."

Share this article

Send this article to a friend »

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Reddit
• Facebook
• StumbleUpon

What are these?