A full one-quarter of NHS trust hospitals in the UK fail to meet minimum standards of cleanliness. From the story:
The Healthcare Commission reports that no improvement has been made on a year ago. In total, 103 out of 391 trusts admitted they did not achieve the minimum requirements, brought in by the Government to help combat the hospital superbugs, MRSA and Clostridium difficile.
Patients groups and politicians said that it was “shocking” that one in four still did not meet the standards, despite ministers’ pledges to tackle cleanliness.
More than 8,000 deaths were related to MRSA and C. diff. The report shows that 26 per cent of trusts failed to keep facilities clean, did not have adequate infection control or follow guidelines on decontaminating reusable equipment.
Such slovenliness is deadly. But change comes slow in centralized systems. It is crucial that however we choose to finance health care in the future, the backbone of the system must be in the private sector.
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…