WORCESTERSHIRE Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is celebrating 100 days since any patient acquired an MRSA bloodstream infection while an in patient within the trust's hospitals, including Kidderminster.

It has been hailed by hospital chiefs as "a very great improvement on the situation in the first eight months of the financial year".

They added they were now back on track to hit the target set for the trust by the Department of Health. Figures for C.difficile also showed a considerable fall since the mid winter peak.

Dr Anne Dyas, director of infection prevention and control, said, "This has only been achieved by some very hard work by a lot of people and demonstrates the commitment of the trust, as a whole, to infection prevention."

The trust also completed its deep cleaning programme as part of the national initiative on time. Helen Blanchard, director of nursing said: "It has been an excellent exercise in concentrating efforts to ensure all wards and areas have reached the same level of cleanliness.

"It has made it easier to focus on future scheduling of our overall cleaning activity as everywhere now starts from the same high standard.

"Part of the £1 million grant has been used to purchase the latest state-of-the-art cleaning equipment, new patient chairs which are not only more comfortable but much easier to clean and an additional supply of curtains for bed areas.

"All these items will assist us in our determination to maintain these standards. "

Daily cleaning schedules in Worcestershire acute hospitals include planned preventative maintenance, deep cleans after infected patients have been discharged, decontamination of equipment and cleaning which takes place after a patient has been discharged.

John Kessell, of the Patient and Public Involvement Forum for the trust, who was involved in discussions on planning the deep clean, said: "I am much encouraged by the progress made by the trust in tackling infection prevention and control."