The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7476 p500
3 November 2007

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Letters to the Editor

Clostridium difficile

Pharmacy team have turned the situation around

From Mrs G. S. Battrum, MRPharmS

In response to an item in News on the Clostridium difficile problems at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust (PJ, 20 October, p425), I would like to mention the huge amount of work and effort that the pharmacy team have put into turning the situation around at Maidstone Hospital since last May.

Once alerted to the C difficile outbreak, the pharmacists reviewed every patient on the offending antibiotics and got them changed to the new policy. All restricted antibiotics were removed from the wards and all this was done within 48 hours.

This involved removing antibiotics that are the mainstay of hospital treatment, ie, all quinolones, all cephalosporins (with one or two exceptions) and oral co-amoxiclav.

Since then, we have promoted the various antibiotic policies and ensured adherence to them through thick and thin. We have been abused by senior medical colleagues, have had junior doctors regularly moan at us and have been incorrectly accused of letting patients suffer without the appropriate antibiotic.

An antibiotic audit done this summer has shown that there was not a single case of use of restricted antibiotics in our trust except where agreed by the consultant microbiologists. Reported C difficile rates are now below the “acceptable” rate.

Gemma Battrum
Principal Pharmacist
Maidstone Hospital

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