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An NHS trust has denied that it ordered a cut in blood tests with the aim of reducing its rates of MRSA.
A senior member of staff at London’s Kingston hospital leaked an email which encouraged staff to question whether blood samples should be taken.
The memo draws attention to cases of MRSA recently discovered in the hospital and highlights the negative implications of this discovery both on patients and the hospital’s foundation trust application.
The news comes after the Department of Health announced last week that it would be counting figures from April to June this year when working out if it has hit a controversial target on tackling MRSA.
The leaked email reportedly states that while the trust carries out a proportionally large number of blood cultures per week, a number of “factors” should be questioned.
And while one such factor is whether the samples are being taken by competent individuals, another relates to whether some of the samples should be taken at all.
Helen Dirilen, director of nursing and quality for Kingston Hospital NHS Trust, admitted that an email had been sent, but said that “the aim is to ensure patient safety and to try and prevent contamination of blood culture samples”.
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