Secrecy over C diff outbreak is unacceptable

THE decision by NHS Tayside deliberately to conceal from the public details of a fatal Clostridium difficile infection which claimed the lives of five patients until four days after the last death in the outbreak, is extraordinary.

In the report published yesterday into the deaths at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee the authority justified this decision by arguing that hiding the information was in the interest of "vulnerable" victims of the outbreak and the need to maintain confidentiality.

While no-one would challenge the right of individual patients not to be named, the decision to keep this information from other hospital patients and the wider public is, as Labour's health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said yesterday, totally unacceptable

What compounds the culpability of the health board is the revelation in the report that although patients were told they were suffering from C diff, they were not told at the time that they had a potentially fatal strain of the bug.

In its response to the report, Tayside claimed that it would have been "totally insensitive" to patients and their families to discuss the outbreak publicly, but in making this case the board is shamefully hiding behind its patients and refusing to take responsibility for its actions.

C diff infections are a very serious matter, not just for those directly effected but for the wider public which relies on the NHS. The board's inadequate response strengthens the case for a full public inquiry into this outbreak.