How would you feel if a relative was about to go into hospital? A friend told me recently that when she heard her mother had to have an operation her first thought was: “Oh no, she’ll get MRSA.”

Certainly the headlines in the papers last week seemed to justify her fears. Deadly hospital superbugs killed a record 5,400 people during 2004-05, according to figures released on Thursday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

And now as well as MRSA there’s an even more lethal infection stalking the wards. Deaths involving clostridium difficile rose 69% — up from 2,247 to 3,807 — while deaths from MRSA climbed 39% from 1,168 to 1,629. In other words, clostridium difficile (commonly known as C diff) was a cause of mortality on two in every 500 death certificates and MRSA a cause of death on one in every 500.

Hugh Pennington, a microbiologist, says that C diff, which can thrive when the balance of bacteria in the gut is disturbed after antibiotic treatment, causing diarrhoea and vomiting, produces a “toxic poison and is very often the last straw”.

The ONS figures are worrying enough, but campaigners warn that the real statistics could be even higher because of underreporting on death certificates. Nor do they take account of victims who survive such as the actress Leslie Ash, who announced last month that she is suing the Chelsea and Westminster hospital in London for £1m compensation after being struck down by a superbug during treatment there. Three years on, she is unable to walk unaided. Papers lodged at the High Court say her career is all but over.

No one is more furious about last week’s ONS report than agony aunt Claire Rayner. Not only did she contract MRSA after a routine stay at a National Health Service hospital six years ago, she has now been infected once again.

Last week Rayner, 76, told The Sunday Times she is being treated for MRSA, which she believes she caught recently at her local hospital while waiting for treatment to a wound to her knee.

“I think I got MRSA from sitting for four hours with an open wound in a busy A and E department,” she says. “But I am glad it is not C diff. Things are simply not being done properly. Hospitals should smell of carbolic and antiseptic and soap, not lavatories and vomit.”

Rayner is president of a campaign for better NHS care. Thousands of families have contacted the Patients Association helpline to share their stories of filthy wards, unclean toilets, sticky floors and serious, sometimes fatal, illnesses caused by the superbugs — strains that are resistant to many antibiotics.

Katherine Murphy of the association says it took one call last week from a woman who had lost a close relative to C diff, probably contracted at the local hospital. “She went to the coroner’s office early on a Monday morning and he said to her, ‘You are the first this week, but last week I had four deaths from C difficile caught at that hospital’.”

According to Kerry Walker, 31, who is considering legal action against the Southern general hospital in Glasgow, where she believes she contracted an almost fatal bout of C diff during a caesarean, the bug will be even more infamous than MRSA.

It is three years since the then health secretary John Reid called for MRSA infection rates in hospitals to be halved by 2008. That same year Rayner nursed her husband Des at home with a private nurse rather than risk him entering hospital. With last week’s figures soaring to such terrifying heights, many families must feel tempted to make similar decisions.

The problem for hospitals is that the superbugs are highly infectious and easily transmitted, particularly to patients with open wounds. And as hospital trusts struggle with funding deficits, cleaning contracts are high on the list of things to be shaved back.

“Fighting hospital-acquired infections is simply not a priority for ministers who are more preoccupied with cutting operation waiting times,” says Murphy.

Pennington partly agrees: “More and more patients is a reason why staff just don’t have the time to do things such as basic hygiene.”

The government insists its target of halving MRSA infections (as opposed to death rates) will be met by 2008 and that they have already fallen by 11% in two years. “We are not losing the battle on MRSA,” says a spokesman. “The challenge is for trusts to go further faster.”

Rayner, however, advocates that patients take charge of their own hygiene: showering before an operation and carrying antiseptic wipes. Somehow I don’t think that will reassure my friend. It sounds like the boy trying to stick his fist in the dyke — too little, too late.

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