NHS turns to online training on MRSA

An online training course about MRSA (methycillin-resistant Staphyllococcus aureus) infection now has users in over 300 NHS primary care and acute trusts, according to its publisher, the Training Foundation.

The course entitled “MRSA – you can make a difference” is motivational programme designed to help trusts combat the increasingly high-profile threat of so-called “superbug” infections. Despite the general image of MRSA as a hospital problem, the online course has proved very popular with primary care trusts.

Nick Mitchell, chief executive of the Training Foundation, said: "The complete absence of any co-ordinated national training programme to combat the spread of healthcare associated infection such as MRSA has, in our view, been disastrous. We are very pleased that more than 60% of NHS personnel can now benefit from our training programme, however, that still leaves staff in nearly 300 NHS trusts who cannot.

"We strongly encourage all chief executives in trusts to ensure their trust’s participation in this programme. It is much cheaper for the NHS to put a barrier at the top of the cliff, by effective staff training, than to send ambulances to the bottom after a serious event has occurred. According to the National Audit Office, treating MRSA is now costing the NHS more than £1 billion a year."

Mitchell continued: "It is especially encouraging to see that the primary care trusts and those involved in community care services have embraced the initiative so wholeheartedly. 179 of the trusts that have licensed access to the programme operate in the primary and community care sector."