Hospitals in Sussex have been accused of risking the spread of deadly "superbugs" by packing too many patients into their wards.

The independent Health Protection Agency (HPA) has recommended that no more than 85 per cent of beds are occupied at any one time to help keep infections at bay.

But East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Conquest in Hastings, Eastbourne District General and Bexhill hospitals, recorded an average bed occupancy rate of 88.9 per cent in 2005/6.

Between April 2005 and September 2006 there were 53 cases of MRSA within the trust's hospitals. Between April 2004 and March 2005, 42 patients were diagnosed with the infection.

The Royal West Sussex NHS Trust, which runs St Richard's Hospital in Chichester, recorded a rate of 88.3 per cent.

The HPA has warned that overcrowding wards - usually in an attempt to bring down waiting times for surgery - hinders the fight against superbugs, such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile (C difficile).

And the Department of Health found that MRSA infection rates were 16 per cent above average in trusts where bed occupancy topped 85 per cent.

In 2005, 3,807 people in England and Wales died after contracting C difficile - an increase of 69 per cent in 12 months - and a further 1,629 from MRSA, up 39 per cent in a single year.

The occupancy figures for Sussex trusts were published on Monday (MAR 12) by the Liberal Democrat Party.

Health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "The extraordinary rise in cases of MRSA is evidence that the Government's strategy to deal with superbugs is failing.

"The simple truth is that, in hospitals where targets dictate where patients are kept and beds are filled to bursting point, nurses are not able to isolate patients and clean wards in order to beat the bugs."

Mr Lamb added that the average bed occupancy rate had risen to 84.6 per cent from 80.8 per cent in 1997, when the Labour Government came to power.

A spokesman for East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust said yesterday: "In 2005/6, the Trust had a particularly high level of patients awaiting care outside of the acute hospital which contributed to the exceptionally high bed occupancy percentage.

"The numbers of these patients has now reduced, as has bed occupancy.

"We have introduced a number of measures recently to help reduce the risk of infection such as a clean your hands campaign, appointing a lead nurse for infection control and regular audits of practice to ensure compliance of infection control measures."

The figures also showed East Sussex County Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs specialist mental health services and learning disability services, recorded a 95.4 per cent occupancy rate.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and the Princess Royal in Haywards Heath, managed to stay just below the recommended maximum - with an average of 84.3 per cent of beds occupied.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "The NHS treats a million people every 36 hours and there were approximately 7,000 MRSA bloodstream infections last year. The risk of getting an MRSA bacteraemia is low."

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