Oops, another target missed. Incidentally, have the infection rates diminished in those hospitals that have been 'deep-cleaned' to industrial standards or has nobody thought to audit that?

Ian Burgess, Bristol,

£60m hygiene blitz, are they taking the mickey?, its all to obvious that the problem with UK hospitals is they are awash with money.

wayne, huntingdon, cambridgeshire

Hospitals should not need deep cleaning, they should already be clean to a high standard I believe cleaning staff should be part of hospital permanent staff, under the direct control of a matron who would ensure a high standard was maintained.

Christopher Brabant, Beedon Nr. Newbury, England

In order to deep clean a ward, the ward has to be empty. Patients are moved out to other wards, and the ward being cleaned is temporarily closed. The cleaning is then rotated from ward to ward over a number of weeks. This results in a prolonged period of reduced bed capacity over the period during which the work is being carried out.

Arranging the national deep clean project over the winter, when hospital admissions are at their highest, has created totally unecessary pressure on beds. The exceptional stupidity of this decision has not been lost on NHS staff (of which I am a member).

Is it any wonder that some trusts are making the logical decision to delay ward closures until after the winter admission surge? Would cancelled operations and nights spent on trolleys in A&E have made better headlines?

Ben, London, London,

Why on earth can't NHS hospitals simply be kept clean ALL the time? I was recently in hospital for a three-day stay and was horrified when I observed how my room was cleaned. No products were used, and the cleaner used the same sponge to clean my sink and nightstand that she used to clean the toilet! There were also insects in my shower. I'm not a professional cleaner, but even I know that this isn't sanitary. I have been in hospitals in other countries, like the US, and there hospitals are kept VERY clean all of the time. It's a hospital! Cleanliness should be a priority.

Audrey , London, UK

Most people living in England think the Government figure of 10,000 people dead a year is a ridiculous understatement of the real facts. Unfortunetely the UK has a tradition of secrecy in many of its Institutions, The Government, the Judiciary and the Police routinely monitor themselves and conduct internal inquiries which fool nobody when something goes wrong. Hospitals are equally secretive as anyone who has lost a relative or a friend on a ward and suspected medical malpractice or dereliction of duty knows from trying to get information and encountering a wall of silence, This deep clean is a joke. The only country I have heard of which has eliminated the dreadful MRSA is Denmark and they did it by isolating patients and moving to a one-room-one-bed policy in their hospitals. Clearly what is possible with Denmark's relatively small population cannot be copied by Britain with its more than 60 million inhabitants. Ongoing deep cleaning is what would be necessary and it can't happen,

Paola, Milan, Italy

Screening patients for MRSA for non-emergency procedures is a waste of resources. It isnt going to do much to keep the number of infections down, and if a patient does carry MRSA what happens then? they cant refuse to treat the patient, and most hospitals wont have the resources to keep these patients isolated. SA is carried in the noses of around 5% of the population . Think of the number of patients seen in a hospital every day and 5 in every one hundred people may be carrying Staph. aureus. thats a lot of potential carriers.
Also the problem no-one mentions with C. diff is that the hand gel hospitals ask all visitors to use to kill spread of bugs doesnt actually kill C. diff so its hard to keep it from hospitals that have had cases of it.
All the stories i read berate the NHS but despite its faults its still a good medical care system and its trying to stop these superbugs, but its harder than most people imagine or are told to ensure hospitals are bug free.

Holly, London, UK

Just when did hospitals need instructions from government on the necessity to keep the place and their staff clean. The whole idea is grandstanding by Brown. The management of Hospitals that do not operate satisfactory standards should be fired, not retired with compensation. We might then see some action.

KW, Bognor Regis, England