PATIENTS are at risk of contracting a killer bug because of poor standards of hygiene such as doctors and nurses not washing their hands properly.

Ealing Hospital in Uxbridge Road, Southall, has been named in a survey revealing the extent of the problem caused by potentially killer bacteria MRSA in Britain's hospitals.

The hospital is third in the national league table for the proportion of patients contracting the bug in its wards and the second worst-hit hospital in London, with 0.22 patients per 1,000 bed days.

MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, currently kills around 5,000 NHS patients a year in England. In London, around 1,000 cancelled operations are due to beds being blocked. MRSA lengthens the amount of time a patient stays in hospital by an average of 14 days.

A spokeswoman for Ealing Hospital responded to the figures, based on infections between April and September 2001, saying: "The report highlights that these results 'need to be interpreted with care' and 'this means that it is not valid to compare one hospital with another'."

She added: "The data does not indicate a high background rate of MRSA infection in the trust. There were 19 cases in that six-month period, which is a similar rate to that in comparable trusts.

"There has been no evidence of excess hospital-acquired infection. Most of the cases of MRSA were imported either from nursing homes or in transfers from tertiary centres."

Director of the Patients' Association, Mike Stone, said: "A lot of the problem comes down to basic standards of hygiene, like hand washing. There is evidence that doctors and nurses are not washing their hands as often as they should."

Ealing Hospital is undergoing a 24-week assessment.

The hospital will be subject to rigorous checks during its clinical governance review by the Commission for Health Improvement (CHI).

The routine inspection began on February 18 and a report will be made public at the end of August.

The assessment will cover how staff treat patients, their involvement in decision-making, the provision of well supervised and up-to-date services and the prevention of errors and accidents.