IPSWICH Hospital is investing £400,000 in its bid to crack down on infections like MRSA and C-difficile.The hospital has already announced it is reducing visiting times to help reduce infection rates and now it has revealed it will dig into its own pockets, despite being plagued with debts, in an attempt to fight infections head-on.

IPSWICH Hospital is investing £400,000 in its bid to crack down on infections like MRSA and C-difficile.

The hospital has already announced it is reducing visiting times to help reduce infection rates and now it has revealed it will dig into its own pockets, despite being plagued with debts, in an attempt to fight infections head-on.

The cash will be used to increase cleaning in clinical areas.

Cleaning teams will now work closer alongside ward teams, and will be told to concentrate on cleaning clinical areas and not offices.

Gwen Collins, the trust's director of nursing and quality, said: “This is hospital money but it is more than worth the investment.”

New signs will be put at the hospital's five main entrances reminding people to wash their hands.

Each ward will also be appointed a clinical champion to promote good practice.

The hospital is also increasing its hand washing audits, putting pressure on departments which score below 85per cent, and increasing and speeding up MRSA screening.

Jan Rowsell, spokeswoman for the hospital's management, said: “We are taking infection control very seriously - it's our number one clinical priority.

“We really need our community to back us.”

Earlier in the year the East of England Strategic Health Authority gave the Heath Road hospital a £300,000 cash grant for fighting infections.

The money has been invested in advanced cleaning techniques and upgrading hand washing facilities and portable toilets.

The Department of Health is due to visit the hospital in June to look at its infection control.

On Friday, the Star reported how the hospital has slashed visiting times to just two hours a day in a bid to cut the spread of infections.

What do you think the hospital should do to cut down on infections? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk.