Wards at three West Midland hospitals will be “locked down” in a bid to combat the spread of superbugs. The move is one of a raft of measures being introduced by Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals trust.

Bosses have introduced the crackdown to fight potentially fatal infections such as MRSA and C. diff. Needles and syringes will also become a thing of the past at Sandwell, City and Rowley Regis hospitals, to be replaced with a hi-tech vacuum that takes blood samples from arms. 

It comes after it was revealed high superbug rates had helped force the trust to delay its bid to break free of Government control by achieving Foundation Trust status.

Trust spokeswoman Sarah Conlon said the new policies would improve security and reduce the risk of infection.

“Implementing the visitor policy will be easier if wards can lock the door so staff can control access,” she said. “The control of the number of visitors to wards is vital.”

A report to the hospitals trust board was compiled by Dr Beryl Oppenheim, director of Infection Prevention and Control.

She said: “A considerable amount of effort has gone into improving the quality of blood cultures.

“Previously these were taken using a needle and syringe and this appeared to allow for a high rate of contamination as well as causing concern about the risk of needle stick injuries.”

Other measures include screening all patients for MRSA on admittance to hospital, stricter management of antibiotics and improved cleaning standards.

A separate report to the trust by hospital matron Rachel Stevens said: “While the matrons generally feel cleaning has greatly improved, there remains room for improvement.

“This is particularly around out of hours, deep cleans between infected patients and equipment cleaning.”

The trust recorded 46 cases of MRSA last year, against a target of 33, but had just 68 cases of C.diff from January until the end of March compared to 118 last year.