HEREFORD County Hospital is the only acute hospital in the West Midlands with no MRSA bloodstream infections since March.

Health minister Ann Keen has personally congratulated Hereford Hospitals NHS Trust on the “fantastic work it has done to help drive down infection rates in the county”.

But staff are not complacent and know they have to be on constant alert to minimise the risk of infection.

The County Hospital was among the first four hospitals in the country to introduce screening of patients when admitted so those already infected could be isolated and treated without risk to others.

Infection prevention education is ongoing and is high on its list of priorities, while the infection control team has just completed a week of daily clinically-based training sessions to raise public and staff awareness.

Each day had its own specialised theme and one of them was reducing the risk of infection from intravenous lines, catheters and other equipment.

Educational initiatives have been undertaken throughout the trust to promote safe practice.

Chief executive Martin Woodford said they were pleased with the progress made at the hospital in fighting healthcare-associated infections and they wanted to maintain and improve on the situation.

He added that staff were working with private companies which provide new products designed to cut infection rates.

B Braun and 3M were two such firms which have been at the hospital to discuss new cannula packs which help in the fight against bugs such as MRSA.