Hospital staff who wash their uniforms at home should do so at min 60deg and not with other washing. No, 30 deg is not sufficient to kill these bugs.

Amanda, Ilminster, UK

One of the great success stories of general management in the NHS of the 1970s involved the wholesale closure, on financial grounds, of hospital laundries. This was followed by the contracting out of hospital cleaning during the 1980s. Perhaps there have been unforseen consequences.

However, all was not well before: I remember the era when NHS cleaners had to leave human waste on floors for nurses to clean up, and apparently were not allowed to scrub walls above head height: that was a job for the hospital painters, who would insist on clearing the ward and setting up a gantry ... so the walls remained dirty.

N R Panikker, Birmingham, UK

Sack the managers and bring back Matron!

Is it me?, haywards heath, Sussex

I have been unfortunate enough to be a patient in one of these hospitals, and have to say that the one I was in was filthy, The so called cleaners were more interested in chatting about what they were going to do that evening than cleaning, I have witnessed them using a large mop throughout the corridors and into side wards without even rinsing the thing, Not to mention being told that I had to have a bath before surgery and upon turning the taps on, seeing water that was the colour of mud filling the bath, when I complained, I was told that if i didnt like it to go and find a bath on another ward, I ended up in a shower on a closed ward alone, not one member of staff would accompany me, despite the severity of my illness,
The whole attitude of some staff needs to be addressed.
There are some that are good but mainly they dont give a damn, especially the contracted out cleaners in some of these establishments.

angela Bennett, coventry, u.k.

send all the nhs staff and cleaners to france, holland, or spain , to observe their clean immaculate hospitals,the wards there are mopped daily with a disposable mop, (one mop per ward) with hot water and disinfectant, and diposable cloths to wipe every surface. not dry mopping like the nhs hospitals. Also the practice of nurses wearing their uniforms on buses and shopping in busy stores is mind boggling, god knows how many germs are carried into the hospitals.

maureen roberts, halifax, england

Friends of ours had a relative in our local hospital and noticed a disposable cup under the bed that was there for several days! Who supervises the people cleaning that floor and should they still have a job?

J Thomas, Winchester, UK

My sons girlfriend used to be a student nurse and she also did bank nursing. (she has since given up due to the abuse given to her by patients, but that is another debate) I was horrified to find out that she always brought her uniform home to wash possibly bringing infection home and washing her things in with my sons things etc - I had always assumed that it was all washed at the hospital therefore with no infection being brought out! How can we possibly combat any spread of infection when basic cleanliness is not adhered to.

Jill Howe, Bromsgrove, uk

Zero tolerance for superbugs requires zero tolerance for lack of hygiene. This in turn requires effectively enforcing hygiene standards; not simply talking about enforcing them in the future, nor adopting newer and stricter unenforced standards.
Hospital hygiene has changed little in 150 years; NHS mangement know *what to do yet are either incapable or unwilling to do it. They should be replaced now, not later, as this is literally a matter of life and death.

steve, essex,

The situation is obviously serious but perhaps we should remember that in 'the good old days' we didn't have 'superbugs'. As these bugs are so resistant to penicillin and antibiotics inside the body, perhaps they are also resistant to conventional cleaning products outside it?
Has any research been conducted into this aspect with a view to improving cleaning products and processes.?

t, Grantham, l

Aha! This is obviously a deliberate ploy to reduce the pressure on the NHS by discouraging people from seeing treatment which may result in them ending up in hospital and in greater danger of their lives.

I may be paranoid, But that doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.

Tony Jones, Grantham, Lincs

Howser is absolutely right . When people are ill rather than go into hospital they should go to the cinema, fewer people die there.

Red Tower, Dunoon, Scotland

Cut out cleaning companies
Increase the pay to cleaners with the saving
Supervise recruitment of cleaners and cleaning by trained nurses
Cleaners should be responsible for designated areas

Ed Manser RGN, Whitstable, UK

Last year, our company produced an online training course on Infection Control (including MSRA) but we have been shocked by the apathy of Trusts and the governing bodies in availing of this resource which can clearly educate NHS workers in how to reduce and prevent these types of problems.

Andy Green, Teddington, Middlesex, UK

During the last foot and mouth outbreak, the entrance to our farm (and all other farms) had disinfectant foot baths to decontaminate visitors.

At that time my father in law was in hospital recovering from major surgery. We visited often and there were no measures in place whatsoever to prevent visitors bringing diseases into the hospital.

Why the different approaches, particularly when you consider that not one human died from, or was at risk from foot and mouth disease.

John Jones, Mold,

Not surprising. Without screening of many new immigrants coming into hospitals, it is a losing battle. I suggest that pre hospital holding areas carry out checks for the deadly superbugs and not allow those with the bugs to infect those without.
One thing is for sure the NHS is not causing the problem; it is patients bringing it in.

Jim Tom, Solihull, West Mids

What happened to boiling equipment that has to be re-used? I know some items are sterilised by ultra violet light, which can only work if the all surfaces face the light, how can every nook and cranny get the light? The thought of something being used on me that hasn't been decontaminated properly fills me with dread.

What has happened in this country, most of these problems are caused by staff -for what ever reason- not doing their jobs properly.

When in Switzerland I visited a cousin (who lives there) in hospital, my God, talk about clean and efficient. The staff said some of UK hospitals were like third world countries.
And to think we used to be envied by the world years ago, what went wrong?

Marley Allin, London, U.K

43 years go I was a nurse at the Birmingham Group of hospitals. As a junior SRNs we were responsible for all the cleaning, which was then inspected by the ward sister every week, and they were quite merciless if it wasn't spotless! One of our tasks each week was to scrape the dust off the bottoms of all chair and locker legs in the ward with an old knife and a piece of newspaper. I wonder if this sort of thorough irradication of collected dust ever happens today. I wasn't a task I looked forward to but I understood the improtance of clean wards and limiting the spread of infection. It all starts at the most basic level, which no-one seems interested in doing today.

Pam Brown, Woking, Surrey

Employ more nursing staff, rather than cutting their jobs and training budgets and we might be able to tackle this problem!

Jan, London, UK

Hospital staff wash their uniforms and work clothes at home in domestic washing machines on a colour wash or even an Ariel 30oC cycle. Are these temperatures sufficient to kill bugs? This is the third time of posting this, I wonder where the other two went?

Phil Constable, Darlington,

Nowhere does the report mention 'dead'? Like when "core targets" aren't met, people die?

Love the statistics too. 100% of my mother went into hospital for a minor operation - failed 'core standards' meant she got C.diff and she died from it - that's a 100% death, by the way.

Mikalina Romanova, Liuzhou, China

Is there any website which shows these trusts?????....can any one advise please...(under the freedom of info. act presumably this will become available somewhere)

Why aren't the ceo's being sacked (without compensation and sans pension)??

How does the UK stack up against the rest of Europe and the developed world??

Where do the Health and Safety laws stand on this?

Anna, camberley,

The government claims to have spent billions over the past 10 years on improving the NHS and they don't seem to be able to deliver even the most basic or requirements - a clean and reliable health service.

And this despite having introduced multiple layers of red tape and administration to monitor and report.

The mind boggles

Mark Vickery, Maidstone, Kent

I fully expect this Government to set up yet another layer of overpaid, inefficient administrators to look at the problem, charge the costs to the trusts, then penalize them for not being prudent enough to employ extra or more skilled cleaning staff.

Mind you, they have only been in power for 10 years, so perhaps I am being unfair in blaming Nu Labour!

John, East Sussex, UK

Is Norman Lamb really that naive:- " Three quarters are successfully implementing effective measures" More like 25% are the only honest hospital trusts! I know which hospital I'd prefer to be in and it certainly wouldn't be one that looks good on paper but is in all likelihood filthy and full of disease. My personal experience of my nearest large hospital shows it has/had severe problems but they don't admit to their failure they blame it all on visitors!

J Gibbs, Fleet, Hampshire

It really is scarey to think, that when youre sick, the worst place to be is in hospital.

K Howser, hartford, ct

we need something like the Australian PBS system to stop doctors over-prescribing the most powerful antibiotics.

It is overuse of antibiotics as much as lack of cleanliness that is to blame.

B Johnson, London, UK

Hospital Staff in contact with patients take their uniforms home and wash them in domestic washing machines, probably on colour wash cycles or even Ariel 30. Saves energy but does it kill bugs?

Phil , Darlington,

I blame the HSE since the use of Bleach under Health and Safety at Work regulations is considered a high risk. Many outsourced cleaning companies will not use these and prefer to use alternatives which are less efficient in killing bacteria.

Sodium hypochlorite is cheap and its re-introduction would undoubtedly reduce the super bug problem

We now live in a risk adverse society - unfortunately the risk management is biased towards the cleaning staff not the patients.

Richard Corall, Aberdeen, Scotland