Hospital bug vaccines predicted

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Professor Sir Liam Donaldson said immunising patients against the infections would be a "big breakthrough".

He also said more research was needed into why Britain has seen a sharp increase in rates of cancer of the gullet in men. Britain now has the highest incidence of the disease in Europe.

In interviews with The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph newspapers, Sir Liam gave a preview of themes contained in his annual report, officially published on Monday.

The details, confirmed by the Department of Health, include a vaccine against C diff being made available within five years and one against MRSA available within five to 10 years.

Sir Liam told The Observer that vaccines against the bugs could be used in two ways.

"One would be protecting the individual, somebody who was going into hospital for a major operation," he said.

"The other way of looking at it would be to try to interrupt the chain of transmission - to study the pattern of infection in the community, in hospitals and nursing homes, and try to eradicate the pools of infection."

However, Sir Liam said infection control measures - including nurses washing their hands - would still need to be in place, since the threat of a new infection emerging would always be present.

"You might be able to get close to eliminating them [with a vaccine]. But if you didn't concentrate on hygiene measures, something else would come along to replace them."