Staff and patients can breathe a sigh of relief, after news Darent Valley Hospital has been MRSA free for three months.

In a public message, chief executive Susan Acott said: “I am pleased to confirm that
we are three months without an MRSA bacteraemia so the measures that have been put in place appear to be having the impact required.

“There continues to be a daily focus on all measures necessary to attain the highest standard of infection control with a considerable efforts being made by clinical and cleaning staff.

“The actions taken, however, including deep cleaning, are putting additional pressure on the operational functioning of the Trust. Regulators came a couple of weeks and were assured with the actions we were taking.”

According to a report in the recent trust board meeting, the Infection Control Team have been working towards standardisation of practice across the trust and that task force meet every two weeks.

During the meeting the trust, with its partners, confirmed it was looking at other environmental decontamination methods, including UV light and peroxide vapour treatments.

A ward-based accreditation system for governance and infection control was also suggested.