The battle to beat MRSA

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Even though superbugs drew criticism of Labour throughout the 2005 election campaign, and a leaked memo earlier this year warned that the target for the rate of MRSA bloodstream infections to be halved was going to be missed, a problem with a political as well as a clinical dimension has not been tackled with anything like the urgency required.

Experts agree better hygiene would help. The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, earlier this year told hospital staff to wash their hands between seeing every patient, but on average they do so only 40 per cent of the time and in some institutions far less often.

This paper's own medical expert Dr Mark Porter has long warned readers both to demand that staff test them for infection on admission, and to refuse to be examined unless nurses and doctors wash their hands first. Yet it is only now that we are being told that routine tests when patients are admitted are to become a matter of course - in an announcement whose timing may be linked to the prospect of a general election.

And questions must be asked about the plan for those screening positive for MRSA and other infections to be placed in isolation. One in 30 of the British population carries MRSA. We need evidence that hospitals have isolation facilities available on the scale required if this recommendation is to be taken seriously.

The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has already announced plans for an annual "deep clean" of wards - but as medics immediately pointed out, efforts to carry an annual exercise may distract from the more important regular cleaning regime that is required.

It is true that MRSA cases are falling - though not fast enough to meet the target set for next April - but other infections such as C. difficile are proliferating. Britain's rates of hospital-acquired infection remain high by European standards.

This is not a new problem, and it is a profoundly alarming one for patients. Lord Darzi's prescription makes sense but it needs resources and political will if it is to make any difference.