After conducting a press conference to denounce MRSA in hospitals yesterday, Michael Howard visited a London hospital and forgot to wash his hands before greeting a patient.

Catherine Cook, the hospital's infection control nurse, said hands should be cleaned "before you touch a patient and after you touch a patient".

In a statement, the Tories said: "Michael Howard washed his hands with alcohol gel before he entered the ward and at least a further three times when he was on the ward.

"If he inadvertently failed to do so between these two patients he regrets this very much."

NHS trade unions, irritated by the Tory MRSA campaign, immediately pounced.

At Unison's Plymouth conference, hospital cleaner Gill Robertson said: "How can you trust a man who lectures and hectors hospital cleaners and then doesn't even wash his own hands between patients when he's shaking hands?

"He clearly hasn't got a clue about MRSA if he thinks it's OK to wash his hands and then sit on a patient's bed."