The Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury

by Angela Cole

The much-heralded single rooms at the new Tunbridge Wells Hospital has not led to a reduction in infection rates, it has been admitted.

It is a year since the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust opened the new hospital at Pembury, which was the first NHS hospital in the country to have all single rooms, designed to give patients extra privacy and dignity - but which had also been expected to cut infection rates.

But Dr Sara Mumford, director of infection prevention and control, told trust board members the anticipated reduction had not yet materialised.

She added more education was needed around the fact that being in a separate room was not a barrier to the spread of infection.

Dr Mumford said: "I think having single rooms altered the challenges. I think it created new challenges around doors and being able to care within that environment.

"I think some of the disruption around the move did take people's eye off the ball slightly too. A huge education is needed for single rooms. I think there has been a bit of catch-up."

She did, however, point to the winter vomiting bug - norovirus - which she said had broken out at Maidstone Hospital, but there had been virtually no cases at the Tunbridge Wells end.

She said infection rates for clostridium difficile (C-diff) were low.

Phil Wynn-Owen, non-executive director, said: "This is a trust that obviously, given its history, can never be complacent about these issues.”

A 2007 Healthcare Commission report revealed 90 patients died of C-diff, between April 2004 and September 2006 at the trust's hospitals.