WESTON Area Health Trust has received a glowing report for its handling of serious MRSA cases over the past year. An annual performance report showed the trust had the lowest number of cases of the superbug compared to neighbouring trusts. Targets set by

WESTON Area Health Trust has received a glowing report for its handling of serious MRSA cases over the past year. An annual performance report showed the trust had the lowest number of cases of the superbug compared to neighbouring trusts.Targets set by the Department of Health asked trusts to reduce serious MRSA infections from 2003/4 figures by 60 per cent.From April 2006-December 2006 Weston Area Health Trust had a total of 16 cases of MRSA compared with United Bristol Healthcare Trust (UBHT) and North Bristol Trust(NBT) which had 45 and 74 cases respectively. UBHT was 12.5 per cent over the planned number of serious MRSA infections and NBT was a massive 60 per cent above target. The report said: "Weston continues to maintain the level of MRSA within the target."WAHT director of operations and nursing, Rachel Slater, said: "We have introduced better screening of patients and have implemented new hygiene procedures to guard against infection."During 2006/7 for each case of MRSA discovered at the hospital we have carried out a root cause analysis to identify how it happened and what could be done in the future to prevent it.