HOSPITAL patients in Hampshire have been urged to complain about dirty wards in a bid to prevent the spread of life-threatening "superbugs".

Health Secretary John Reid wants patients to join the fight against hospital-acquired MRSA infections, which kill thousands each year.

He spoke out just a month after bosses at Southampton General Hospital were forced to close the intensive care cardiac ward after four patients were struck down by the notorious superbug.

Official figures also showed the number of superbug infections were soaring nationally.

This trend was reflected at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust, which dealt with 53 cases in 2002-03 - a rate of 0.13 cases per 1,000 bed days.

This was slightly up on the previous year when there were 45 cases - a rate of 0.11 infections per 1,000 bed days.

But Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust had 13 MRSA cases and an infection rate of 0.08 per 1,000 beds in 2002-03 compared with 21 cases and a 0.13 infection rate the year before.

Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Trust also bucked the national trend, with 16 cases last year - an infection rate of 0.11. This compared to 17 cases and a 0.12 infection rate in 2001-02.

Dr Reid said patients had a right to demand high standards of cleanliness because it was a matter of life and death.

He said: "We have to be more open about this, and therefore I think that we have to find some means of telling patients just how well or badly hospitals are doing."

He added: "Patients should not be embarrassed about saying to hospital staff, 'This isn't clean, would you please clean it?'."

Dr Reid has unveiled a new plan to tackle hospital-acquired bugs called Towards Cleaner Hospitals and Lower Rates of Infection.

He wants to bring in experts from abroad to help the NHS battle the drug-resistant bacteria and pass more control to front-line staff.

The plan also involves:

l Ensuring every hospital publishes and displays infection rates.

l Asking local patients' forums to conduct cleanliness inspections four times a year.

l Introducing bedside phones so patients and visitors can contact hospitals' cleaning services.

Hospital-acquired infections hit about 100,000 people each year in England, resulting in an estimated 5,000 deaths.

MRSA - methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus - first appeared in the 1960s but has reached epidemic levels in the last few years.

Some strains are resistant to almost all known antibiotics, and fighting it already costs the NHS an estimated £1 billion a year.