Research and analysis

HPR volume 10 issue 19: news (17 June)

Updated 16 December 2016

1. Mandatory HCAI reports quarterly trends: January to March 2016

PHE’s latest quarterly epidemiological commentary on trends in reports of Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA and MSSA) and Escherichia Coli bacteraemia, and of Clostridium Difficile infections, mandatorily reported by NHS acute Trusts in England up to January-March 2016, has been published on the GOV.UK website [1].

The report, including tabular and graphical information, provides data for the January-March 2016 quarter (updating the previous report published in March 2016). Some key facts are listed below.

1.1 MRSA bacteraemia

There has been a 6.6% decrease (1.6 to 1.5 reports per 100,000 population) in rates of total MRSA bacteraemia reports between October-December 2012 and the current quarter (January-March 2016). This continues an overall decreasing trend beginning from April 2007. Most recently (between January-March 2015 and January-March 2016) decreases have been seen in both counts and rates of all reported MRSA bacteraemia (from 222 to 206 and from 1.7 to 1.5 reports per 100,000 population, respectively). This decrease has also been observed for Trust-assigned counts and rates (from 91 to 82 reports, and from 1.0 to 0.9 per 100,000 bed-days) and CCG-assigned counts and rates (from 90 to 82 reports, and from 0.7 to 0.6 per 100,000 population), while Third Party-assigned counts and rates have remained stable or unchanged (from 41 to 42 reports, and an unchanged 0.3 reports per 100,000 population).

1.2 MSSA bacteraemia

Compared with the same quarter in the previous year (January-March 2015), both counts and rates of all reported MSSA bacteraemias in the current quarter (January-March 2016) were increased: by 8.2% and 7.0% respectively (from 2,526 to 2,732 reports and 18.9 to 20.2 reports per 100,000 population). Similarly, both the counts and rates of Trust-apportioned MSSA bacteraemia reports increased: 8.2% and 7.2% up (from 716 to 775 reports, and 8.1 to 8.7 reports per 100,000 bed-days, respectively), over the same time period.

1.3 E Coli bacteraemia

An 8.8% increase (from 63.5 to 69.1 reports per 100,000 population) has been observed in the rate of all reported E.Coli bacteraemias in the current quarter (January-March 2016) compared with the same quarter of the previous year (January-March 2015). There has been an overall increase of 16.8% in the rate of E Coli bacteraemia since October-December 2012: from 59.2 to 69.1 reports per 100,000 population.

1.4 C. Difficile infection (CDI)

Between January-March 2015 and the current quarter (January-March 2016), there has been 13.4% and 14.4% decrease in the counts and rates of all reported CDI cases (from 3,398 to 2,941 reports and from 25.4 to 21.7 reports per 100,000 population, respectively).

1.5 Reference

1. PHE (9 June 2016). Quarterly Epidemiological Commentary: Mandatory MRSA, MSSA and E. coli bacteraemia, and C. difficile infection data (up to January-March 2016).

2. Infection reports in this issue of HPR

The following bacteraemia reports are published in this issue of HPR. The links below are to the relevant webpage collections:

• Klebsiella spp. bacteraemia: voluntary surveillance reports (EWNI): 2011-2015
• E. coli bacteraemia: voluntary surveillance reports (EWNI): 2008-2015.

3. Corrigendum: COVER data for October to December 2015

The HPR report “Quarterly vaccination coverage statistics for children aged up to five years in the UK (COVER programme): October to December 2015” (HPR 10(12), 24 March 2016), has been republished following corrections to the data in table 3b (Completed primary immunisations and boosters at five years by NHS England Area Team).

The data in the associated, separately published statistical report have not been subject to any change.

The updated documents are available on the webpage “Cover of vaccination evaluated rapidly (COVER) programme 2015 to 2016: quarterly data”.