RCN calls time on MRSA.

You would not be surprised if you opened tomorrow’s newspaper to read: ‘Nurses in plea for action over £115m hospital superbugs.’ But that headline has been published before, in a 1996 edition of the Daily Mail. It accompanied a story about a resolution at RCN congress calling for a nationwide surveillance scheme to monitor antibiotic-resistant infections. Now, with an election looming, the political bunfight over who is to blame for the rise in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections and why effective measures have not been put in place to remedy the situation is continuing. And healthcareassociated infections (HAIs) are big news again. History seems to be repeating itself because this week the RCN, backed by Nursing Standard, the Infection Control Nurses Association and Kimberly-Clark Health Care, is launching a fresh campaign to combat HAIs. It is calling on the four UK governments to sign up to ten minimum infection prevention and control standards (see box far right). The campaign is not the first by nurses on the issue. In 1992 Nursing Standard launched its own campaign calling for a national monitoring system for HAIs and a clean-up of the nation’s hospitals. The aim of Operation Clean Up was not just to remove dirt, but to make hospitals safer places for patients, visitors and staff. All the major political parties endorsed the campaign but it was not until 1997 that national monitoring of infections such as MRSA was put in place – and even then it was voluntary.