Curbs on hospital visits to beat superbugs

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St George's Healthcare NHS Trust in Tooting wants to limit visitors to stop the spread of germs and make cleaning and managing mealtimes easier.

It comes only days after the trust slipped from "good" to "fair" in a survey on service quality in the annual report by the Healthcare Commission, the national health watchdog.

The commission criticised St George's for failing standards on infection control. The trust was among the one in four to be criticised. The issue hit the headlines after at least 90 patients were found to have died due to the bug Clostridium difficile at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells trust.

Bosses at St George's say they are on target to cut hospital bug rates after creating an infection taskforce and screening all elective surgery patients for MRSA.

A poll of more than 700 staff showed they wanted to limit visiting hours to between 3pm and 8pm. Only two visitors would be allowed per bed. The changes would not apply to wards for children or the elderly. One hundred patients will be asked whether the plan should go ahead.

A trust spokesman said: "By standardising visiting hours, we can make scheduling mealtimes easier, minimise interruptions to patient care and rest and improve cleaning."

London trusts are battling to reduce MRSA cases to a rate of under two per month. St George's has 2.57 cases per 10,000 bed days. The national average is 1.5 cases per 10,000 bed days. It also recorded 33 cases of C.difficile in August.

Its chief executive, David Astley, said the Healthcare Commission score did not reflect recent work. "Since last year we have seen a huge improvement in reducing infection rates," he said.

Michael Summers of the Patients Association said: "We must not be too restrictive because patients rely on friends and family."