No charges over hospital C. diff deaths
No charges to be brought against trust following 90 deaths from Clostridium difficile
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Wednesday, 30, Jul 2008 02:50
No charges are to be brought against the NHS trust responsible for hospitals in Kent in which 90 people died of the infection Clostridium difficile (C. difficile).
Between April 2004 and September 2006 more than 1,170 patients were infected across the three hospitals of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust.
Following an investigation the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Kent Police announced today that while mistakes had been made there is insufficient information to launch a criminal investigation.
"From the information available, we cannot establish with certainty a causal link between failings to manage infection and the death of any particular person," HSE deputy chief executive Sandra Caldwell explained.
"The trust has acknowledged that mistakes were made and their senior management team has changed substantially."
She added that an audit of the trust is to be conducted in September to ensure infection risk at the hospitals is being properly managed.
Assistant Chief Constable Allyn Thomas of Kent Police commented: "While the report makes for grim and at times distressing reading, our review has not identified any information that would indicate a need or duty to conduct a criminal investigation into the trust at this time."
Today's announcement is based on interviews with the Healthcare Commission's lead investigators and experts who contributed to a report released in October last year by the commission.
This concluded that "significant failings" led to the C. difficile outbreaks that caused the deaths of at least 90 patients.
Commenting on progress made following the report, Nigel Ellis, head of investigations at the Healthcare Commission, said today: "Since publishing the findings of our investigation, our focus has been on ensuring that this is never allowed to happen again.
"We have conducted two follow-up inspections at the trust and will be back in again soon. We note the significant improvements they have made, but will make our final judgement on progress when we publish the follow-up report later this year.
"The entire NHS must learn the lessons from the events at Maidstone and Kent hospitals."