Health secretary John Reid says rates of the hospital superbug MRSA are falling as a result of reforms introduced by the government.

Ministers will today unveil statistics showing that improvements such as better hand hygiene and the use of "rapid swabs" have started reducing infection rates - which have been rising in Britain for a decade.

The claim was immediately disputed by the Conservatives who have made MRSA a symbol of a costly and over-bureaucratised NHS.

Conservative campaign HQ said: "If infection rates are going down - and that's debatable as they don't provide full annual figures - they have only decreased marginally given the huge list of ineffective initiatives launched by Labour."

Meanwhile, the Mail claims that a funding crisis at the Great Ormond Street hospital has "blown a hole" in Labour's defence of the NHS.

The paper says the childrens' hospital has closed up to a fifth of its beds, cancelled dozens of operations and is turning away sick children - at a time when government is boasting about the biggest spending increase in NHS history.