By Healthcare Facilities Today

One of Britain’s first Private Finance Initiative hospitals has subjected patients to “likely catastrophic risk” because a faulty ventilation system installed by the contractor has been spreading dangerous infections from operating rooms into the rest of the building, according to an article on the Telegraph website.

According to a report, consultants for Hereford's County Hospital say all eight of its operating rooms have significant ventilation deficiencies which are associated with increased infection rates and outbreaks of airborne diseases in the hospital.

Patients undergoing operations also risked contamination. Derek Smith, chief executive of the hospital’s parent body, Wye Valley NHS Trust, described the failings as an “extreme risk to patients’ safety,” the article said,

The hospital patient death rate for the Wye Valley trust, as measured by the NHS’s standard mortality indicator, was 11 per cent above the English average in the last month reported, July 2013 - and as much as 33 per cent above average at one point last year. Hereford County is the trust’s main hospital, the article said.

According to the article, staff in the hospital’s maternity unit have also been exposed to illegal levels of nitrous oxide gas as a result of faulty equipment. A number of delivery rooms for expectant mothers were closed because of the problems.

Read the article.