Being bottom of the league isn’t always a bad thing
One of constants of this pandemic has been the increased use of words that were previously used infrequently and by very few people. From ‘furlough’ to ‘unprecedented’, many of us are now regularly using words and phrases every day which were previously alien to us.
Among them is ‘nosocomial’. While some working in healthcare may have used the word semi-regularly, a large proportion won’t. Those working outside of health and social care even less so.
Nosocomial is the single word to describe an illness that someone (namely a patient) picks up while they are in hospital or another health care facility. Unsurprisingly, every hospital and trust wants their nosocomial rates to be as low as possible.
The reason nosocomial has found its way into everyday use during this pandemic is that trusts are monitoring the number of patients who develop Covid-19 within their hospitals. That is, they are monitoring how many people enter the hospital negative for Covid-19 but then later test positive for it.
Data which was shared on Twitter yesterday shows that Barts Health NHS Trust is the in top 10 trusts in the UK with the lowest rates of nosocomial Covid-19 cases, based on the percentage of hospital acquired cases since August 2020. While this is encouraging and something to celebrate, like a lot of things on the internet, it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. In this case, the pinch is the fact that it’s not clear what the source of the data is.
Enter the Barts Health Business Information Unit (BIU). Lovers of data, this team were able to look at the proportion of hospital identified Covid-19 infections, likely acquired in our hospitals and compare these numbers to other trusts across London.
Again, we came out on bottom. Out of 18 trusts across London, Barts Health NHS Trust is the in top 5 with the lowest rates of nosocomial Covid-19 cases. This is a very good thing. It shows that as a trust, our infection prevention and control measures are working extremely well.
The numbers refer to patients who were swabbed and tested positive for Covid-19 at least eight days after they were admitted to hospital. This is because anyone who tested positive for Covid-19 up to two days after being admitted to hospital will likely have contracted the virus in the community (i.e. not in the hospital). And for anyone who returns a positive swab between three and seven days after being admitted into hospital, it’s impossible to confirm if they became infected in the community or in the hospital.
“This outcome is a direct result of the collective effort and collaboration of all of our staff to ensure that infection prevention and control measures have been at the heart of our planning, design and delivery of care during the pandemic”, says Caroline Alexander, group chief nursing officer for Barts Health.
“It is great to see that all of your hard work and commitment is paying off and making an impact. By continuing to follow the hands, face, space guidance, we are all ensuring our patients are as safe as possible when are in our hospitals. The fact that Barts Health has among the lowest cases of hospital-acquired Covid-19 infections is particularly impressive considering the scale of the pandemic’s impact on north east London. To all our staff I say ‘thank you’ for playing your part in keeping our hospitals safe”.
This data also acts as a reminder that our infection prevention and control measures and the simple things do work. So please, remember to wash your hands regularly for at least 20 seconds; wear a face covering when in our hospitals including communal areas; keep a 2 meter distance from people when possible.