Future data publication for MRSA and C. difficile

In the light of the keen public interest in mandatory healthcare associated infection data, and particular interest from the NHS, as well as from other stakeholders, in the April-June quarter for 2008/09, mandatory MRSA bacteraemia data will be published according to an accelerated schedule from this quarter onwards. This change to the publication schedule has been agreed following a request from the Department of Health (DH). The April-June 2008 quarter mandatory MRSA bacteraemia data will be published on 18 September instead of in October as previously indicated.

The HPA and DH have been working for some time towards earlier publication of mandatory MRSA and C. difficile data. The intention has been that from the fourth quarter of 2008/09 both the MRSA and the C. difficile quarterly data will be published according to an accelerated schedule. It is not possible to bring this accelerated schedule forward for the C. difficile data because of the greater complexity of the outputs (which will include Primary Care Organisation outputs). However, in view of the smaller data set and less complex analyses, and in view of the public interest in the data for the first quarter of 2008/09 in particular, DH have requested and the HPA have agreed that the release of the 2008-09 Q1 MRSA mandatory surveillance data, and the subsequent quarterly releases of MRSA mandatory data, should be brought forward to allow these figures to be in the public domain as soon as possible. It has been agreed by the statistical and epidemiological teams in DH and HPA, respectively, that a shorter validation period should still produce figures within existing standards of tolerance for accuracy. As previously, some changes to figures may occur as a result of retrospective validation, and these will be published in subsequent quarters.

Since the mandatory healthcare reporting system was introduced, the number of changes in MRSA figures due to validation processes has decreased. Analysis by statisticians and epidemiologists in DH and HPA indicate that moving to an accelerated schedule, with a shorter period of validation, would not be likely to result in a significant change in accuracy, while speeding up the data publication process. In implementing such an accelerated schedule, HPA would continue to undertake the validation processes after publication to investigate any discrepancies e.g. reconciliation with routine laboratory reports.

The accelerated schedule of publication of mandatory MRSA bacteraemia data will apply for all subsequent quarters of 2008/09, with a view to introducing a similar accelerated schedule for the publication of mandatory C. difficile data from the fourth quarter of 2008/09, thereby bringing the publication of both data sets back together. This revised publication schedule is available below and will also be reflected on the statistics publication plan on the DH website (http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Statistics/CodeOfPractice/DH_4016423) .

 

Ongoing publication schedule for MRSA and C. difficile

Q1 2008/09
April-June 2008 data
MRSA	18 September
C. difficile	23 October

 

Q2 2008/09
July-September 2008 data
MRSA	18 December
C. difficile	15 January

 

Q3 2008/09
October-December 2008 data
MRSA	19 March
C. difficile	16 April

Last reviewed: 15 August 2008