The battle against superbugs in Scotland took on a new urgency yesterday with the announcement that a team of inspectors is to be set up to conduct random checks on hygiene standards in hospitals.

The move by Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Health Secretary, follows the deaths this year of nine patients at the Vale of Leven hospital in Dunbartonshire after an outbreak of Clostridium difficile. The number of deaths involving the superbug has almost doubled in Scotland in the past two years. Statistics from the General Register Office for Scotland show that C.diff was a factor in 597 deaths last year, compared with 313 in 2005.

Ms Sturgeon also announced that the Government at Holyrood was planning to expand the number of single rooms in new and refurbished hospital wards, with the ultimate aim of phasing out multi-patient wards.

However, the moves failed to placate opposition parties at Holyrood who had urged Ms Sturgeon to introduce a more transparent system under which hospitals, rather than health boards, would make public the number of patients affected by superbugs.

Relatives of C.diff victims also accused Ms Sturgeon of stealing their proposals for an independent inspectorate to head off their campaign for a public inquiry.

Michelle Stewart, secretary of the C.diff Justice Group, said: “We came up with the idea of an independent inspectorate for hospitals, like HM Inspector of Schools, and put it to Nicola Sturgeon when we met her. We think she keeps announcing things we suggest to shut the families up and stop us campaigning for a public inquiry. But every time she announces one of our ideas, it just shows how much was wrong and underlines the need for a public inquiry.”

The initiative adds to already-announced measures costing £54million, which include a national pre-admission MRSA screening programme and a C.diff reference laboratory to speed up diagnosis.

Ms Sturgeon said that the new inspectorate would focus on infection control practice, hygiene and cleanliness standards, waste management and maintenance of essential equipment.

Reports will be prepared for each board, with a national overview for ministers and the Scottish Parliament.

Ms Sturgeon said: “It's vital that the public have confidence in the quality of care and treatment they receive in Scottish hospitals. I will hold boards accountable to maintain the highest possible infection prevention and control standards at all times.”

One of the failings of previous anti-infection policy in hospitals was that it was too reliant on self-assessment, she added.

Labour accused Ms Sturgeon of complacency over recent C.diff outbreaks. Richard Simpson, the party's public health spokesman, called for hospital-based reporting so that people knew how their local hospital was performing.

“Nicola Sturgeon has been consistently complacent about C.diff and patients throughout Scotland are paying the penalty,” he said.

Mr Simpson claimed that the target of a 30 per cent reduction in C.diff cases by 2011 set by Ms Sturgeon had already been achieved in England, where there had been a 38 per cent cut.

“Patients in Scotland should not have to wait three years to see improvements in infection control that will still leave us lagging behind the rest of the UK,” he added. “We also need more transparent reporting so that people know what is happening in their own local hospital.”

The Scottish Conservatives went further than Labour, calling for reporting of ward-by-ward infection trends. Jackson Carlaw, the Scottish Tories' public health spokesman at Holyrood, said: “The current practice of collating figures by health board area only has allowed problem wards and hospitals to go unnoticed for too long, with disastrous consequences. This must change.”

Mr Carlaw also called on Ms Sturgeon to ensure that senior nursing staff on wards were given full authority to keep them clean. “They should have power to bang heads together to concentrate minds and make our hospital wards safer. All staff - from consultant to cleaner - should be answerable to modern matrons,” he said.

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