Hospitals in Sussex have more cases of the MRSA superbug than almost anywhere else in England.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust has the third-highest infection rate in the country, according to a table published today by the Department of Health.

In a list of 175 trusts, it is ranked third from bottom. The list gives the number of cases between April 2004 and March 2005 and details the MRSA infection rate.

Patients, MPs and health watchdogs say the high figures are alarming and they are demanding more is done to combat the rise of the superbug.

Brighton and Sussex had 129 cases, 22 more than the previous year and a rate of 0.345 per 1,000 bed days.

It had 107 cases the year before, a rate of 0.286.

The trust, whose main hospitals are the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, also bucks the national trend of a six per cent drop in MRSA.

The only trusts with a worse record are Cambridge University Hospitals and University Hospitals Birmingham, which comes bottom with 152 cases and a rate of 0.433.

The best-performing trust and top of the table is Birmingham Women's Healthcare NHS Trust which has had no MRSA cases in the past two years.

The news is better for East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust which has had a fall in cases from 60 to 42 and now has a rate of 0.119, making it the best performer in Sussex.

Cases at Surrey and Sussex Healthcare, which runs Crawley Hospital, have fallen from 48 to 35. Its MRSA rate stands at 0.135.

Royal West Sussex, which runs St Richard's Hospital in Chichester, has reported a slight rise in cases from 22 to 25 and its infection rate is 0.160.

Worthing and Southlands Hospitals reported 34 cases and has a rate of 0.170 compared to 22 cases and a rate of 0.110 the year before.

The specialist Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead registered seven cases and a rate of 0.270 compared to three cases and a rate of 0.116 the previous year.

The table has been criticised by some because it lumps all hospitals together regardless of the type of treatments .

For example, Queen Victoria Hospital is a specialist regional burns and plastic surgery unit for the South-East while the Royal Sussex takes seriously ill cancer, kidney and heart patients from across Sussex.

The longer a patient is in hospital, the higher the risk of infection.

Tanya Page, 31, from Uckfield, is suing the NHS for £260,000 after contracting MRSA at the Princess Royal Hospital.

She had gone in to have a baby but ended up in a coma for four months with less than a ten per cent chance of survival.

Ms Page said: "I'm not surprised to learn about these figures after having gone through my experience.

"What annoys me is that we keep hearing about high MRSA rates and my local trust is always saying it takes it seriously and is doing everything it can to deal with the problem.

"From what I can see there seems to be nothing happening and things seem to be getting worse.

"The improvements are not quick enough. It is time for the trust to stop being among the worst hospitals and start doing something about it."

About half the people living in Lewes Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker's constituency regard the Royal Sussex or the Princess Royal as their main hospital.

He said: "I regularly receive letters from constituents concerned about the cleanliness of our hospitals.

"These figures demonstrate all too clearly that those concerns are well founded. Patients in our local hospitals are by definition vulnerable in health terms, therefore keeping hospitals clean and minimising the risk of infection is paramount and even more important than elsewhere.

"I am meeting the chief executive of the trust tomorrow and will be raising this important matter with him."

Mid Sussex Conservative MP Nicholas Soames, who has the Princess Royal Hospital in his constituency, said he was alarmed by the figures but believed the management and staff at the trust were doing everything they could to bring the infection rates under control. He said the trust needed to look closely at the number of people it let into the hospital, including visitors, as this was probably adding to the spread of infection.

Brighton Kemptown Labour MP Des Turner, whose constituency covers the Royal Sussex, said: "There are a lot of factors to this. This is a major hospital that takes a lot of seriously- ill patients and its work is very different to smaller general hospitals that may find it easier to control infection rates.

"Such is the demand for its services the trust is working at almost 100 per cent occupancy all the time and it is inevitably crowded, which increases the risk of infection."

Janice Kent,vice-chairman of the independent Patient and Public Involvement Forum which monitors the Brighton and Sussex trust's performance, said: "We have already raised our concerns about infection and cleanliness in parts of the trust and we will be hoping for these figures to start coming down.

"If they don't then we will be asking more questions."

Brighton and Sussex trust medical director Charles Turton said: "We encourage a high standard of hand hygiene, use antibiotics to treat infections when appropriate and strive to keep our wards and departments clean and tidy.

"Our MRSA rates remain higher than many other Sussex hospitals because we treat very sick patients, such as people needing intensive care, heart surgery and kidney dialysis ,who are more at risk of developing an infection and these figures reflect that."