FLOWERS, the hospital visitor’s traditional gift, have been banned from a hospital because of safety fears and the threat of infection.

Visitors to Rochdale Infirmary face having them confiscated in case they carry bacteria. Senior sisters on two surgical wards and one orthopaedic unit have told management that flowers are no longer welcome.

The staff say that vases full of flowers, when accidentally tipped over, could spill water on heart monitors or other electrical equipment. Brackish water in ageing displays can encourage bacteria while the abundance of blooms also makes surfaces difficult to clean.

Management at the NHS trust hospital in Greater Manchester was unapologetic yesterday, insisting the measure improved hygiene. The move was condemned as unnecessary and extreme by patients’ groups. Under the new regulations, any bouquets will be returned to visitors as they leave the building.

Frederick Bracegirdle, 80, a retired restaurateur from Rochdale, tried to take a £7.20 bouquet of roses, carnations and gypsophia to his wife Muriel, 76, who was recovering from a knee operation. They were taken from him on arrival on the ward. Nurses told him that they might cause an infection to his wife or other patients on Spring Hill ward.

He said: “I had two bunches of lovely, colourful flowers from friends to deliver to my wife. She likes flowers and I thought it would be a nice surprise for her. Just as I was coming up to the ward she was on I was told by a nurse I had to leave because I had flowers with me. I was really surprised.”

Mr Bracegirdle said his wife had been in hospital for two weeks and needed cheering up. She was only able to get a brief glimpse of the flowers.

“We were both flabbergasted, to say the least,” he said. “People have been bringing flowers to patients for years. Why suddenly change now?” The Department of Health said there were no official guidelines but, in the past, fruit and flowers had been banned from intensive care units at some hospitals.

The ban attracted criticism from Alison Brumfitt, national spokeswoman for the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS). She said: “We think flowers are a way of bringing joy to the lives of sick people. This might not be about safety but about staff finding it inconvenient to change the water in the vases.”

A spokesman for the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said the policy had been in place since last summer. So far most patients and visitors had been supportive. He estimated that there had been more than a thousand visitors to the three wards since then and they have received only two complaints.

Concerns about ward hygiene have also led to stringent vetting procedures for visitors and their gifts at many other hospitals. Such is the perceived health hazard that a growing number of trusts have introduced limits to flowers on their wards. While they are banned from most high-dependency areas such as burns units, intensive care and repiratory beds, they are also been excluded from post-surgery wards in several trusts.

Institutions on the front line in the floral war include the Royal Shrewsbury Hospitals, Shropshire; The Bromley Hospitals in South London; Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading. Even the WRVS, provider of flowers for decades, was told by a hospital in Kent to stop selling plants in its on-site shop.

Last summer Radwinter Women’s Institute in Essex was told that 12 cakes it had baked for Saffron Walden Community Hospital posed a risk to patients. After a public outcry, the ban was lifted.

• Cleaners working in the NHS have halved in number over the past 20 years. The public sector union Unison said that there were 55,000 cleaners working in hospitals, compared with around 100,000 in 1984.

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