Surgical site infections cost the NHS around £758 million every year and contribute to the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance. Suzanne Callander finds out how the use of incise drapes can help reduce the risk of infection.
Surgical site infections (SSIs) affect around 5% of all surgical patients and their impact is wide-ranging, having an adverse effect on both patients and the NHS. A SSI will affect the quality of life of the patient. It doubles the risk of mortality and increases length of hospital stay following surgery. For the NHS, the minimum cost of treating a SSI is £3,000. The financial burden of SSIs to the NHS is approximately £758 million per year.1 Further, and of growing importance, is the contributory effect that treating SSIs has on antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Overuse and misuse of antibiotics is driving the continued increase and emergence of new, resistant and multi-resistant bacteria, which is now growing at a faster pace than the speed of development and release of new drugs.
In 2013, the Chief Medical Officer for England issued a stark warning about increasing AMR, stating that within 20 years the currently available antibiotics may no longer work and that we may be heading for a ‘post antibiotic era’ unless action is taken. There have been no new antibiotic class discoveries since the introduction of daptomycin in the late 1980s and all the classes of antibiotics in use today are now beginning to show some resistance.
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