A Liberal Democrat survey of infection control at 56 NHS Trusts in England has found that one in three staff are not doing enough to prevent bugs spreading.

According to the survey, two thirds of the infection control teams said they did not have enough resources, especially staff, to do their jobs properly while on average there was just one specialist infection control nurse to look after the cleanliness and hygiene of every 100 hospital beds.

Forum Response: Unison

Jon Richards, national officer for Unison, told ePolitix.com: "Unison is convinced that the problems relating to falling cleaning standards stem back to the decision to introduce competitive tendering of cleaning services into the NHS. Contractors on short term contracts piled into the NHS and cut staff, reduced the pay and conditions of those left and broke up the NHS team."It no good having thousands more nurses, doctors and therapists if they are working on dirty wards. The government needs to invest in re-building the NHS team by bringing cleaning services back in house and by getting back to the sorts of numbers of NHS cleaners we used to have in the 80's."

Forum Response: Age Concern

A spokeswoman for Age Concern told ePolitix.com: "This survey highlights the concerns of many older people who have spent time in hospital. We have heard from a number who have had prolonged hospital stays after catching infections on wards.

"The National Service Framework for older people is starting to improve standards of care but we have a long way to go to ensure patients can be confident that the hospital environment they enter will be a clean and safe one."

Forum Response: Help the Aged

A spokesman for Help the Aged told ePolitix.com: "This report is particularly worrying, since older people make up the largest client group within the NHS. These types of hospital-acquired infections can lead to longer hospital stays and further health complications for people who are clearly vulnerable.

"Older people need to be sure that a visit to the hospital will not result in worse medical problems than they started with."