She found bed linen, gowns and tables were a more common source of the superbug than floors, the Lancet Infectious Diseases study said.

The most common MRSA superbugs sites are:
Bed linen – 41% of sites contaminated
Patient gown – 40.5%
Overbed table – 40%
Floor – 34.5%
Furniture, bed-rails, side-rails – 27%

Dr Dancer, from Glasgow’s South General Hospital, said the problem was that hospital cleaning tended to concentrate on areas of visible dirt such as floors.

But she said they would be much more effective if they targeted hotspots that hands came into contact with regularly.

She added that without such strategies, campaigns to get people to wash their hands were not effective.

Bed linen, patient gowns and overbed tables were the most common sources with over 40% of these sites contaminated. Door handles, bed-rails, furniture and taps were also common sources, she said.

Dr Dancer also claimed that the cleaning did not even need to be done with state-of-the-art cleaning agents.

“Hot soapy water is enough,” she said.

“Governments across the UK need to reconsider their approaches. We are just trying to remove visible dirt from areas such as floors when this is not the best approach,” she added.

She also criticised the Department of Health in England for the plans for a deep clean of hospitals. “It is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. And anyway it will only have an impact in the first week and then hospitals will be dirty again.”

Chief Nursing Officer Christine Beasley said the government was using a range of measures, including enforcing hygiene rules with the threat of fines.

But she defend deep cleaning as an “important tool”.

She added: “Infection control is a complex problem that needs a range of solutions and the fact is there is no single remedy.”

From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7069897.stm

Health Direct notes that most of the experts’ suggestions for solving the MRSA superbugs crisis are sadly lacking from Stalinist Brown’s centralist dictat:

On Sept 26, 2007 Health Direct posted: Gordon Stalinist Brown pledge on NHS funding and MRSA

Hospitals are to use new deep clean techniques in which wards are stripped and subjected to steam cleaning and high strength disinfectant in an attempt to reduce outbreaks of MRSA and C difficle superbugs.