Delays in obtaining test results for the superbug MRSA range from 18 hours to more than two days in hospitals around Scotland.
Delays in obtaining test results for the superbug MRSA range from 18 hours to more than two days in hospitals around Scotland.
Health experts last night warned that the significant variations in the time it takes to establish MRSA could mean that some patients are having vital treatment delayed and action is not being taken swiftly enough to prevent the superbug from spreading.
A survey released today by the country's official auditors shows considerable disparity in the time it takes to discover if patients on wards have the bug - even between hospitals run by the same health authority. At the Vale of Leven Hospital in Dunbartonshire, the median time to produce a test result at a weekend was 18 hours 38 minutes compared to a delay of almost 65 hours at Glasgow's Victoria Infirmary.
Both hospitals are run by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
The discrepancies were revealed in a wider review of diagnostic tests by Audit Scotland, which found waiting times to undergo checks such as scans and stomach probes have been cut but services could still be more efficient.
Some hospitals get back the results of MRI and CT scans more quickly than others, with the difference ranging from less than a day to five days.
In addition, standards of endoscopy services, for looking in the bowel or stomach, are markedly poorer in Scotland than in England on a number of criteria, ranging from the timeliness of the procedure to its safety.
Catherine Vallely, project manager for Audit Scotland, said: "Scottish health boards may have to look at what has been done in England to see if there is anything we can replicate here."
Diagnostic services at 22 hospitals across five Scottish health boards, including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Lothian, were looked at by her investigation team.
During a week in April they conducted a census of the time it took to get back MRSA test results for patients staying on hospital wards.
They found that confirming whether a patient has MRSA could take a whole day longer in south Glasgow compared to north Glasgow, because different testing systems were used, and at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary results came back within 24 hours during the week and took more than 48 hours at the weekend.
Leading microbiologist Professor Hugh Pennington said obtaining results swiftly was vital for both the patient concerned and those being treated alongside.
He said: "A two-day delay means that a patient might not be treated for two days and that might be quite important in terms of saving a hip joint, for example, because there is a window of opportunity where if you get an antibiotic in soon enough you can stop the infection and cure it and therefore do not have to do another operation.
"There is also the issue of infection control. The sooner you know someone is positive, the sooner you can take action to keep them away from everyone else."
Mr Pennington said a two-day turnround time was typical for traditional MRSA tests but more rapid tests have been developed which could provide answers within hours. He said these were much more expensive than the standard system and cutting costs on laboratory consumables was an easy target when health boards needed to save cash.
The Scottish Government is piloting a system of screening patients for MRSA before they are admitted to hospital.
This uses the traditional, chromogenic agar test, which a government spokeswoman said was the existing gold standard.
She added: "Other tests, for example PCR testing, can give results in a shorter timeframe, but there can also be a varying degree of accuracy in the results of some of these testing kits.
"We are reviewing the PCR testing kits available and on the back of our pilot MRSA screening programme we will be examining if there is a robust and quicker method than the chromogenic agar test. This study will influence the choice of test to be recommended throughout Scotland."
