Measures to combat infections contracted in elderly care homes have been announced by Scotland's health minister.

Malcolm Chisholm said an expert group has been established to look at infection control standards for care homes in both the public and private sector.

Mr Chisholm announced the plan at a conference of 150 health experts and scientists who gathered to consider ways of tackling Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs).

Malcolm Chisholm: Seeking experts' ideas

The minister told the Glasgow conference that the expert group would publish a paper by the end of October and final standards should be in place at all care homes by April 2003.

It has been estimated that more than 30,000 people a year - about 9% of all adults going into hospital in Scotland - pick up some form of infection during their stay.

Of these, the number of bloodstream infections caused by the antibiotic-resistant MRSA superbug has been increasing by 15% a year and now stands at about 900 cases a year.

Mr Chisholm said the results of the conference would form the basis of an action plan on HAIs to be published at the end of August.

He said: "HAI is a global problem which no country can ignore.

Important benchmark

"In Scotland, HAI imposes an increasingly important challenge to the NHS - one which I am determined will be met and addressed more effectively than in the past."

Mr Chisholm has already announced a series of measures in the wake of serious outbreaks of HAIs at Scottish hospitals.

He said publication of the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health's first quarterly report on MRSA rates in March was an important benchmark by which infection control could be measured.

The minister announced a new national infection control training scheme for nurses in April and called on health boards to review their infection control measures in May.