BUG OFF; Hospital brings back bucket and mop after MRSA kit is a failure.

Byline: By BILL DANIELS

A HOSPITAL has abandoned its hi-tech cleaning system - hailed in Parliament as the way to combat superbug MRSA - in favour of mops and buckets of bleach.

Bosses had hoped the new microfibre "supermops", designed to pick up more dirt, and dust-busting machines would wipe out the killer bugs MRSA and Clostridium Difficile.

But cleaners have returned to the wards with their old-fashioned mops after the new system - believed to have cost several hundred thousand pounds - failed to stem outbreaks.

Now 30 cleaning trolleys and their state-of-the-art equipment stand idle in the corridors at the pounds 180million Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, West Mids.

One disgruntled cleaner said: "They spent a lot of money and clearly it doesn't work very well so we've gone back to basics." Health Minister Andy Durham had told the Commons after visiting the hospital last July that the "revolutionary" cleaning system was "reducing infection and improving cleanliness".

But yesterday Dudley Group of Hospitals chief executive Paul Farenden confirmed: "Bleach cleaning ensures C.Diff spores are eliminated and that the hospital remains clean to the highest standards."

The hospital is still paying pounds 800 a month to use a machine to clean the redundant supermops.

Meanwhile, there has been another C.Diff-related death at the James Pagent Hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk, taking the toll to 18 since December.

The latest outbreak has hit 14 other patients - despite bosses spending pounds 400,000 on extra cleaning staff.

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BACK TO BASICS: Cleaner with mop