Hospital-acquired infection (HAI) is estimated to cost the National Health Service in England £986m annually, according to a study conducted by the Public Health Laboratory Service and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. HAIs "impose a substantial burden on the secondary and primary health care sectors, on infected patients and their informal carers," Dr Rosalind Plowman (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and colleagues conclude.
Patients who developed one or more HAIs during their inpatient stay were found to cost 2.9 times more than uninfected patients. This represented an average increase of £3,154 per case, the authors say.
Nursing care accounted for 42 per cent of the additional costs and hospital overheads, management time and capital charges for 33 per cent. Drugs accounted for 5 per cent, of which nearly half was for antimicrobials.
Patients who developed an HAI stayed in hospital, on average, for an additional 14 days, the report says. The incidence of HAIs was shown to be 7.8 per cent in inpatients.
Of those patients who did not have an HAI during their hospital stay, 19.1 per cent went on to develop one post-discharge, but of those who did have an HAI as an inpatient, 30 per cent were identified as having an infection post-discharge.
The report recommends that health care services should be aware of the burden that HAIs impose and ensure that adequate control and prevention of infections is undertaken.
Patients were selected for the study on the basis that they had an inpatient stay of 30 hours or more. The cost of resources used to treat patients with an HAI was estimated in 3,980 inpatients, 1,408 of whom were followed up post-discharge.
The study is due to be published in six weeks time by the Public Health Laboratory Service, 61 Colindale Avenue, London NW9 5DF (tel 020 8200 1295). A summary of the findings is available on the Department of Health's website (http://www.doh.gov.uk).