mrsa

[mark.coleman]

are ther any working parties regards compensation for bereived families considering its a hospital caught disease

[Miss Zippy]

I'm not aware of any working parties that have looked into the issue of compensation alone, but there are many bodies who have looked into/are looking into the incidence of hospital acquired infections in general and methods of controlling the spread of infections, such as the NHS Litigation Authority, the National Audit Office and the Department of Health, to name a few. If someone has died as a result of contracting MRSA, their family may possibly bring a claim for clinical negligence against the NHS. The onus is always on the claimant to prove that the hospital were negligent in, say, placing a non-infected patient next to an infected one (given the pressure on hospital beds, particularly in intensive care, you would have to prove that this was unreasonable and that the hospital should have been aware that the infected patient was infected) or by not following appropriate hygiene procedures. MRSA presents no harm at all to a a 'normal', healthy person and around 20-30% of the population have the bug present in their noses and/or on their skin, which will never cause them any problems, or any healthy people they come into contact with.