HYGIENE hit squads are to carry out unannounced inspections of Scottish hospitals in a crackdown on MRSA, the superbug that is resistant to antibiotics.

Hospitals found to have dirty wards will be “named and shamed” and issued with “clean-up orders” forcing them to improve their hygiene procedures.

The random visits, expected to begin later this year, are designed to stamp out hospital acquired infections (HAIs), which are responsible for about 500 deaths every year.

The bugs, which are becoming resistant to common antibiotics, are a growing threat. This year every Scottish hospital was put on alert for a new strain of superbug resistant to normal antibiotics.

The hit squads, which are likely to include infection control nurses, will have the power to inspect any ward, outpatient area or surgical unit considered at risk of superbug infection.

Hospitals with the highest number of deaths from HAIs will be the first to be targeted.

Professor Hugh Pennington of Aberdeen University, an expert on hospital-acquired infections, welcomed the hit squads, but warned that thorough inspections were needed to halt the spread of superbugs.

“It has to be about more than just walking around with a clipboard looking at floors, walls and ceilings,” he said.

“It has to be about looking at what practices are actually going on and what people are actually doing, which is more difficult.

“Hospitals have to produce evidence that people are washing their hands rather than simply show that they have provided wash hand basins and alcoholic wipes.

“If you look at the food industry, they have had inspections with the legal sanction that premises could be closed down. But, as the 1996 E-coli outbreak in Wishaw proved, that wasn’t enough. Those premises, which killed 21 people, had been inspected three times the previous year.”

Earlier this year it emerged that fewer than a third of Scottish health authorities were meeting basic hygiene targets aimed at controlling hospital superbugs.

A report by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland, the watchdog in charge of assessing progress on tackling hospital superbugs, found that only 37% of health boards had proper systems in place to monitor infections.

The findings have raised concerns over how seriously the problem was being taken by the Scottish executive and local health authorities.

While proper hand-washing facilities for staff, patients and visitors is one of the simplest ways to reduce the risk of infection, recent research found that most hospitals in Britain were failing to comply with the hand-washing guidance.

The bugs have been implicated in the deaths of almost 20,000 people in Scotland.

More than 33,000 patients develop infections in hospital every year at a cost of £186m and the loss of 380,000 bed-days because of ward closures.

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