The battle against superbugs could be jeopardised after the government admitted some hospitals will be unable to meet the deadline to deep clean their wards.

The Prime Minister had promised that all wards would be deep cleaned to "industrial standards" by March 31 but Ben Bradshaw, the Health Minister has admitted that around 13 NHS hospitals will not meet the deadline.

The other 170 general hospitals will complete the £60m hygiene blitz by March 31, Mr Bradshaw said.

The national deep clean has been criticised as a publicity stunt to give the impression the NHS is in control despite high levels of superbug infections and deaths.

Antibiotic-resistant MRSA is officially responsible for 7,000 to 8,000 infections a year, and cases of the deadly Clostridium Difficile (C diff) bacteria are put at 55,600 annually. The figures have recently been declining.

However many experts believe the real total for superbug infections is 300,000 a year.

Mark Enright, professor of molecular epidemiology at Imperial College London, thinks MRSA and C diff kill 10,000 a year in the UK.

He said high levels of superbugs in hospitals are increasingly likely to affect healthy people who can pick them up, carry them and then become infected through a superficial injury.

The government’s strategy of a one-off super clean of wards will not have a long-term effect in the fight against hospital infections, according to The Lancet medical journal.

It said Brown was “pandering to populism”, adding that the proven way to stop superbug infections was to make sure that doctors, nurses and visitors washed their hands properly.

There are also concerns about how well the multi-million pound clean was being carried out.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act reportedly show that 87 out of 127 hospital trusts had not finished the deep clean, but were planning to do so before the end of March.

“The idea all these hospitals are going to rush to get it all finished over one weekend is a joke,” said Derek Butler, chairman of the charity MRSA Action UK.

“We can’t be confident the deep cleans have been properly done. They haven’t been monitored by the government.

“Some hospitals are saying they did the clean around or between patients, but if a deep clean is meant to be thorough, then surely this means emptying out a ward.

“If they could really clean thoroughly without clearing out wards, then hospitals should be spotless constantly.”

Bradshaw said the independent Healthcare Commission watchdog would now follow up the programme by conducting inspections “to make sure that all hospitals have hygiene and cleanliness policies that are as good as the best.”

Conservative Health Spokesman Andrew Lansley said the deep clean had not been properly funded.

He said hospitals had been forced to cover at least £23m of the cost from other budgets.

Bradshaw said Mr Lansley’s calculations were incorrect.

“We allocated 62 million pounds extra from the regional health authorities and they tell us all of that money has gone to the hospitals,” he said.

Hospitals are due to start MRSA screening of patients coming for non-emergency procedures from April, and for all emergency admissions over the next three years.

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