New fears have been raised over the MRSA superbug as several of Sussex's hospitals were today revealed as having the country's highest infection rates.

Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Trust in East Grinstead has a rate of 0.38 per 1,000 bed/days while Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals has 0.37.

They are ranked first and second in a list of shame of specialist trusts in England and Wales published by the Health Protection Agency.

In contrast, the Royal West Sussex Sussex NHS Trust, which runs St Richard's Hospital in Chichester, is among the top ten performing hospitals with a rate of 0.15. Cases at the Royal West Sussex went up from nine to 12.

MRSA kills at least 5,000 patients a year across the country.

Brighton and Sussex had 70 cases of MRSA between April and September last year - a sharp increase on the 38 it reported for the same period in 2003.

David Lepper, MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: "It it a matter of concern and certainly something - when I have had a chance to look at the figures - I will take up with the chief executive."

Although Queen Victoria (QVH) has a marginally higher infection rate than Brighton, it reported only five cases (it has fewer patients and beds).

It is a specialist regional burns and plastic surgery unit while Brighton takes on seriously-ill cancer, kidney and heart patients from across Sussex. The sicker the patient, the longer they are in hospital and the more chance of developing an infection.

The QVH trust has released a statement claiming the statistics are "misleading".

It said three of the five patients with MRSA had been transferred to QVH for specialist treatment after contracting the bug at other hospitals. The infection rate per 1,000 bed days was high, the hospital said, because its small number of beds meant the figures were skewed.

Brighton and Sussex medical director Charles Turton said: "We aim to reduce the risk of getting MRSA in all our hospitals by encouraging a high standard of hand hygiene, using antibiotics to treat infections when appropriate and maintaining cleanliness.

"Our MRSA rates are higher than many other Sussex hospitals because we treat very sick patients who are more at risk of developing an infection.

"A relative lack of capacity at our hospitals means our beds are full almost all the time and the old fabric of some of our wards mean beds are closer together than we would like and we do not have many side rooms for isolation.

"But that doesn't stop us doing our best to cut our rates. We have a dedicated infection control team, supported by 28 modern matrons and more than 90 infection prevention and control link nurses."

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust provides district general hospital services to a population of about 460,000. It manages about 1,140 beds and provides the majority of its services from The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and The Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath.

Children's services are also provided from the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children in Brighton.

The figures for Sussex go against the national trend which reports cases of MRSA infections are going down.

There were 31 cases recorded at East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust compared to 27 in 2003 while Worthing and Southlands went up from 10 to 13.

The only trust to show an improvement was Surrey and Sussex Healthcare, which runs Crawley Hospital. It recorded 17 cases compared with 19 the previous year.