FRIMLEY Park Hospital was placed at the zenith of NHS trusts in the country in an annual report by the independent watchdog for healthcare in England. The Healthcare Commission awarded Frimley Park an "excellent" status for financial performance and quality of services, joining 18 other trusts in the bracket nationwide. The news is a welcome tonic for senior staff at Frimley Park, who faced criticism last week for levels of deadly bug Clostridium Difficile (C. Diff). Figures from the Health Protection Agency ranked the NHS foundation trust as the fifth worst in the country for contraction rates of C. Diff. With this in mind, chief executive Andrew Morris remarked: "We are one of the few hospitals to hit our MRSA reduction target last year, but we did experience unnacceptable levels of C. Diff during 2006. "Although this did not count towards our annual health check, we acted quickly by taking on extra infection control staff, implementing a rigorous antibiotic policy and investing in more isolation rooms. "As a result, levels of C. Diff have fallen dramatically in 2007. I hope this latest set of results goes some way towards reassuring the public that we have the systems and resources in place to continue to reduce C. Diff infection rates."
