A WINTER diarrhoea and vomiting bug did not take hold in community hospitals because of excellent standards of hygiene, health chiefs have said.

Health bosses said there was only one case of norovirus across Worcestershire’s five community hospitals due to high standards of cleanliness and hygiene.

Norovirus continues to cause problems at Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester and the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, leading to ward closures at both hospitals, which are managed by Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

Visiting restrictions were in place at the Royal on Wednesday in a bid to stop the highly infectious virus spreading.

Sandra Brennan, director of quality at the Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, discussed the high standards of infection control across the county’s community hospitals during a meeting at Stourport Sports Club where she said norovirus had been less of a problem.

She said: “People will be aware there has been noro-virus circulating in the community, particularly over Christmas, that did cause some ward closures at the acute trust.

“We did have one incident of norovirus in one of our community hospitals and managed to contain it to one patient. That says something about the high standard of hygiene and cleanliness in our community hospitals.”

So far this financial year (2011/12), there have only been five cases of the superbug C.difficile in the trust, well within the threshold of 28 cases for the year.

As previously reported in your Worcester News, Worc-estershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has recently introduced dual testing for C.difficile which is likely to mean more cases of the bug are identified in the lab.

Mrs Brennan said a review of the cleanliness of commodes in community hospitals has been completed and shows improvement.

Audits of urinary catheters and podiatry are scheduled to run from this month until April to reduce infection levels further.

Your Worcester News was the only member of the media at the meeting.