Dirty hospitals will be fined and wards shut

Health Secretary Alan Johnson was using his conference speech to ram home the message that deadly bugs MRSA and C.difficile must be overcome.

He was also unveiling new measures to protect NHS staff from abuse and was repeating Gordon Brown's signal that health will be the key election battleground.

Mr Johnson was expected to attack the Tories as "shabby and dishonest", saying: "It was this party's vision of a better future that created a comprehensive, universal NHS free at the point of need. It will be this party that presides over its continued renaissance."

He said a new health super-watchdog would be given powers to issue on-the-spot fines to embarrass unhygienic hospitals.

Hit squads from the regulator, which will be created next year, will also be able to shut down wards that cannot prove they are clean. The tough regime applies across the private sector as well as the NHS.

It follows an order from Gordon Brown yesterday to "deep-clean" wards once a year. Mr Johnson was expected to say: "To ensure patients' safety I want a regulator with the power to close, clean and then re-open wards if necessary.

"We will equip the new regulator with tougher powers, backed by fines, to inspect, investigate and intervene where hospitals are failing to meet hygiene standards."

The announcement is the latest in a raft of measures to crack down on MRSA and C.difficile, which claim more than 5,000 lives a year.

The Government has banned doctors' white coats, given more powers to matrons to take problems to hospital boards and made chief executives legally responsible for reporting infections.

Experts say the proposal to deep-clean wards is pointless because MRSA is mainly passed on by human contact, not by the environment.

But today's plans will be far more controversial as hospital bosses face the humiliation of losing control over unhygienic wards.

Sources said the new regulator should "hurt" hospitals that do not do enough to control infection. Fines will be largely symbolic and should shame managers into action.

London has made good progress on MRSA, bringing down rates by more than a quarter compared to last year.

Under separate plans to improve staff safety, Mr Johnson will promise to hand out personal safety alarms. He will also pledge £97 million to help prosecute people who assault doctors and nurses.

He was expected to say: "We know there is no more important resource for the NHS than the staff who work for it. But too many suffer harassment, intimidation and violence. Anybody who abuses our staff must face touch action and the possibility of jail."

More than 60,000 NHS workers are physically assaulted by patients and relatives of patients each year.

In a foretaste of the coming election battle, Mr Johnson was also attacking the Tories as dangerous, saying the NHS is only safe with Labour. "While we champion clinical change, the Tories oppose it," he was set to say.

"This illustrates clearly how unfit to govern the Conservative party has become. Their shabby and dishonest campaign for a moratorium on saving lives demeans those who promote it. It also betrays the doctors and consultants who propose such change in the interests of their patients.

"It will be this party, led by Gordon Brown, that continues to build an NHS fit for the 21st century."

Mr Johnson admitted today that part of the junior doctor recruitment system had been "an absolute disaster". In an interview with Sky News, he said that the reforms to medical training had not been the Government's "finest hour". He said the issue was now being investigated.