Spot checks on hospital hygiene after superbug rate soars

Search parties are to be sent into hospitals unannounced every three months to see if they are clean, the government will announce today.

In the latest attempt to cut down on the soaring rates of the hospital superbug MRSA, Health Secretary John Reid is to send members of the public on to wards to check up on their cleanliness.

He will also announce that every hospital will have a large noticeboard in one of its public spaces, showing its infection rates, in a bid to shame trusts into tackling the problem.

But the latest moves were dismissed as gimmicks by campaigners, who said search parties made up of members of the public would not be able to tell whether MRSA was lurking or not.

New figures out this week are expected to show another leap in the number of cases of MRSA. Tony Field, chairman of the MRSA Support Group, which campaigns for more hygiene measures, said: 'Hospitals can only be clean if they employ enough cleaners to do a proper job.'

MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, can live for up to three days on hospital surfaces, and may live longer on human skin. It is a growing problem for the NHS, with more than 7,000 cases a year in England alone.

People who are ill and those vulnerable to infection after surgery are at greatest risk of MRSA and can die if they become infected.

Claire Rayner, former nurse and president of the Patients' Association, said last week that she would do anything rather than go into hospital again, after she contracted MRSA following a knee operation.

'I would rather double-mortgage this house and get a consultant to come and see me. If I was so ill that I needed surgery, I don't know what I'd do. I only hope, if it ever happens again, that I'd be too ill to care.'

This week the Department of Health will 'name and shame' hospitals with the worst superbug infection rates, when new official figures for each trust in England and Wales are published by the National Audit Office.

They are expected to show that the bug is a growing problem, despite a string of crackdowns on staff hygiene and ward cleanliness.

John Reid, the Health Secretary, is expected to say that plans to let patients choose from next year where to have an operation will force hospitals to clean up their act, since patients will boycott those with high infection rates. Doctors will be able to discuss MRSA fears with patients.