116 die in London NHS trust after catching superbugs

The scandal of patients dying from superbugs in a major London hospital is exposed today.

Evening Standard can reveal that 116 people died at St George's Healthcare Trust, Tooting, after contracting MRSA or Clostridium difficile in less than three years.

At least 46 patients died as a direct result of the superbugs and they were a contributing factor in another 70 deaths. It is the first evidence of the numbers of patients dying in London hospitals from infections that can be beaten by good hygiene.

The figures, obtained under the freedom of information act, are released weeks after the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells scandal where 90 patients died of the stomach bug C.diff. In total 95 patients died in the south London healthcare trust after contracting C.diff and 21 after contracting MRSA.

C.diff hit more than 2,230 London patients between April and June. Figures from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) show for the first time that the infection is affecting hundreds of under 65s - 466 patients aged between two and 64 were hit in the three months.

Campaigners claim the situation is spiralling out of control and warned patients to protect themselves against dirty hospitals. But health bosses say they are winning the battle to bring infection rates down.

Across London the number of C.diff cases in over 65s fell slightly compared to last year, from over 1,960 to 1,770. MRSA rates have also fallen across the city to 237 between April and June compared with more than 300 last year. Yet the rate of infection is still higher than the national average.

Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust and Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich still have the worst C.diff rates in the city despite more than halving infections to 113 and 32 compared with the same quarter last year.

The HPA measures infections every three months but no one collects data on the number of patients dying of MRSA and C.diff in each hospital.

Mark Clarke, prospective Tory parliamentary candidate in Tooting, who obtained death figures for St George's, said: "How can hospitals claim to have a grip on this problem if they do not even know the scale of deaths caused by hospital infections."

St George's was recently criticised by the Healthcare Commission for failing to meet hygiene standards. Trust chief executive David Astley said today that infection rates had come down and that it is now second best in the country for MRSA. But it had 116 C.diff infections in over-65s between April and June, up from 76 in 2006.

He said: "Each case of a hospital acquired infection is a serious incident but to put these numbers into context, last year the trust treated 64,000 inpatients."

The city health authority NHS London has ordered all London trusts to report deaths from MRSA and C.diff as a "serious untoward incident".

Today's figures also show:

Barts and the London NHS Trust had the highest number of C.diff cases in under 65s - 67 between April and June. The trust said it had halved rates since then.

The lowest rate was at Lewisham Hospital, with one C.diff patient between two and 64 in the quarter.

C.diff cases almost doubled at North West London Hospitals Trust between the first two quarters of the year, to 114.

London has the largest number of MRSA infections but has also seen the biggest drops.