Superbug hospital will not be prosecuted

LONDON (Reuters) - No criminal prosecution is to be brought against an NHS trust after outbreaks of a hospital superbug in which 33 people died, the health regulator said on Thursday.

Nearly 335 patients were infected with Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) at Stoke Mandeville Hospital during two outbreaks between October 2003 and June 2005, of whom 33 died.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) decided following an investigation that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal proceedings against Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, on health and safety grounds.

Sandra Caldwell, HSE director of field operations, said: "On the basis of the evidence available, HSE did not find sufficient admissible evidence to be able to bring criminal proceedings against the trust, alleging a link between management failures and particular deaths."

It did point to a lack of contingency plans to help managers respond to any outbreak, and made recommendations.

The HSE also found some relatively minor breaches in document keeping, but they were not directly linked to any of the deaths and it was considered not in the public interest to bring legal proceedings on that basis.

The trust was not immediately available for comment.

The investigation, involving Thames Valley police, was launched after a report by the Healthcare Commission (HC).

A separate investigation into 90 deaths at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust hospitals is continuing, the HSE said.