A SENIOR Warrington doctor has spoken of his concern over Warrington Hospital’s ‘miserable rate’ of MRSA infections.

“MRSA is avoidable, controllable, deadly dangerous, destroys patients’ lives and their families,” said the doctor who asked to remain anonymous.

“The hospital chief executive and her board – even though they are under political duress and pressure – should really pay serious attention to the Healthcare Commission’s report that has expressed serious concern about levels in Warrington Hospital,” he said.

MRSA ruins lives and Warrington is a well-funded hospital yet its rate of infection is worse than other hospitals; something recognised by health watchdog the Healthcare Commission, the doctor added.

Private hospitals such as Spire Cheshire, in Stretton, rarely have any MRSA infections and at Halton Hospital, which is run by the same trust as Warrington Hospital, the infection rate is close to zero.

Hospital bosses put the difference down to the type of care offered.

Halton Hospital, like private hospitals, offers mainly day case, routine surgery where the risk of MRSA infection is very low.

The MRSA cases at Warrington Hospital are almost always in patients who are in hospital for extended periods of time, with cannulae and drips that provide entry points for the bug.

So far this year there have been seven cases, which puts the hospital on course to meet its target of fewer than 12 in a year.

Last year there were 18, but only 10 of those were caught in hospital.

But the doctor, who has 27 years’ experience, says that there are no known cases of anyone getting MRSA outside of hospital.

A spokesman for Warrington Hospital, however, said that infections classed as ‘community acquired’ are often contracted in other hospitals or nursing homes before the patient is transferred, rather than in the community itself.

NHS Direct states that it is possible for those outside hospital to become infected, but MRSA infections are most common in patients already in hospital because they have an entry point for bacteria, like a wound, catheter or intravenous tube.

The staphylococcus aureus (SA) bacteria lives on the skin of about one in three people, but can become methicillin-resistant to form MRSA if a person has not finished a course of antibiotics.

Then, if it gets into the bloodstream it can be very difficult to treat because certain strains of antibiotics won’t work.

Prior to changes in service provision Halton Hospital also experienced MRSA cases.

Focusing on low infection risk routine surgery instead of emergency care helped stop these infections.

Patients have a greater risk of infection when they are severely ill, and those patients are usually treated at Warrington rather than Halton Hospital.