The fight against hospital superbugs in Scotland is being hampered by doctors not cleaning their hands properly, new NHS figures have suggested.

Fight against superbugs hampered by doctors failing to wash their hands
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"While nurses and other staff are heeding the message, doctors are still falling short of a target for compliance with hand hygiene rules.

Other statistics reveal that rates of Clostridium difficile and MRSA are falling, albeit at too slow a rate in the case of the former to meet official targets.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish health minister, welcomed the figures but Scottish Labour claimed a new 'superbug tsar' is needed to tackle the scourge.

The statistics were released after it was revealed police are interviewing nurses at Vale of Leven Hospital in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire, about a C. diff outbreak in which 18 people died.

They reveal that last November nurses complied with hand hygiene rules 95 per cent of the time, but for doctors the figure is only 84 per cent."