Red tape is stopping hospitals using a new cleaning system that could dramatically cut numbers of a potentially fatal infection.

Eastbourne District General Hospital and the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards are among only a handful in the South East to use the technology to tackle the spread of bugs such as clostridium difficule (C diff).

However Department of Health guidelines based on 1969 legislation means the laundry system, called Otex, can only be used on mops and not sheets or other bed linen.

Otex artificially recreates the thunderstorm effect to generate the chemical ozone, said to be 3,200 times more effective than chlorine bleach.

However it uses cold water which goes against the 1969 rule, updated in 1995, which says all laundry and linen should be washed at 70C at least.

During development of the Otex system, microbiologists examined a mop which had been used on a hospital ward and subsequently disinfected in the normal way using hot water.

They found it was still teeming with 150,000 colonies of C diff spores but after the mop was processed with Otex, no trace of the superbug was found.

Research has also shown the system can destroy MRSA and the winter sickness bug norovirus.

A study in the Lancet showed 40 per cent of C diff infections are spread by hospital bed linen and gowns worn by patients.

Scientists have proved that standard laundry systems do not kill C diff and that it can be returned to hospital beds on apparently bug free sheets and blankets.

East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs both hospitals, has admitted it is only using the machine for mops.

A spokesman said: "Bed linen is cleaned by the normal hot water and detergent processes laid down by the Department of Health.

"We have our own laundry service and treat all laundry as infected and wash it at the higher temperature of 85 degrees for 15 minutes, which exceeds the standards set out."

Infection control experts say that in 1969 super bugs did not exist and in 1995 they were still on the horizon.

They are now calling for the guidelines to be updated to allow alternative cleaning processes.

The system is already used in private hospitals and care homes as well as Premiership football club Bolton.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "The available evidence does not suggest that linen is a major source of C diff infection.

"Failure to isolate patients and inadequate cleaning of the environment are known to be major transmission routes."

A spokesman for the makers of the Otex technology said: "We continue to work closely with several NHS trusts and regularly send samples of laundry and microfibre from hospitals for independent microbiological analysis."

Hospitals across Sussex are continually struggling to combat outbreaks of C diff, MRSA and the norovirus.

Last year wards at several hospitals had to be closed because of infections.

Hospitals are trying several measures to combat infections including a new staff dress code which bans ties, while the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton has recently opened a dedicated ward for C diff patients only.

It is also giving some at-risk patients daily amounts of yoghurt to try and prevent them developing any C diff infections.

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