Over £4.5m announced to investigate hospital-acquired Covid-19 infections in Wales

Over £4.5 million is to be invested into a programme investigating hospital-acquired Covid-19 infections in Wales.

The funding will go towards supporting a framework used by health boards to report and investigate hospital-acquired infections.

Health Minister Eluned Morgan has pledged that all incidents of Covid-19 caught in hospitals will be investigated and lessons will be learnt to reduce the chances of it happening to anyone else.

The investment over two years will support health boards and the NHS Delivery Unit to take forward an important and complex programme of investigation work into cases of hospital-acquired Covid-19.

Throughout the pandemic the NHS in Wales has worked hard to do all it can to keep the virus out of hospitals and to protect people being cared for, often in very difficult circumstances.

This has included infection control procedures in place in all NHS settings, including hospitals; free PPE available to all NHS and social care services; extensive guidance issued about social distancing, bed spacing, staff and patient testing, ventilation and mask wearing; and multiple checks undertaken by health boards, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales and the Health and Safety Executive.

However, despite the best efforts of healthcare staff and all these measures being in place combined with prioritised testing of healthcare workers, Covid-19 infections have been contracted in hospitals.

They account for around one per cent of all Covid-19 infection and in some cases, some people have come to harm or died after acquiring Covid-19 in hospitals.

NHS Wales has been committed to investigating hospital-acquired Covid infections throughout the pandemic, with families affected encouraged to contribute to the “Putting Things Right” process and The Nosocomial Transmission Group set up in May 2020 to help prevent infections through learning and publishing a national framework in relation to patient safety incidents of hospital acquired Covid-19.

Health Minister Eluned Morgan said: “Our NHS in Wales has worked incredibly hard to keep the virus out of hospital settings, but unfortunately it has been impossible to achieve this.

“With high rates of community transmission outside of hospitals during various periods of the pandemic, it has been a monumental task to prevent Covid-19 entering our healthcare settings and spreading to those receiving care in them.

“We know that in some cases patients have experienced harm or died after catching Covid-19 in hospital settings, and we are deeply saddened by all those who have been affected by this.

“We are investing in this framework as we are determined to not only investigate into every case of hospital-acquired Covid-19 infection, but learn why it happened so we can do everything in our powers to prevent it from happening again. It will also be reviewed in two years due to the evolving nature of the pandemic.”

Yesterday Wrexham.com reported that the Welsh Conservatives had reiterated their calls for a Wales-wide inquiry into the Welsh Government’s handling of coronavirus.

During First Minister’s Questions on Tuesday Paul Davies MS highlighted a “damning hospital inspection report into Prince Charles Hospital last month, which found that the arrangements for the prevention and control of infection within the emergency department and clinical decisions unit did not protect patients, members of the public and staff.”

Commenting on the funding announcement, Welsh Conservative and Shadow Health Minister Russell George MS said: “It is about time ministers provided funding to investigate this: Wales has the UK’s highest Covid mortality-rate, and given a quarter of these deaths originated in hospitals, it is essential they are investigated with frameworks in place to reduce transmission going forward.

“There will be cases of significant breaches of the infection control measures the minister boasts about, like that of Sharon Jones who was moved to an amber ward in Neville Hall Hospital rather than the promised Covid-free green ward. She subsequently caught Covid and died in hospital.

“But this is the least the minister can do. If the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay were serious about identifying and addressing faults in infection control during the pandemic, then they would cease to block the Wales-specific Covid inquiry for which we and bereaved families have long called.”