THE region's hospitals are failing to keep pace with the rest of the country when it comes to driving down hospital infections, according to NHS bosses.

While cases of MRSA and C. Difficile are reducing in most parts of England, they remain stubbornly high in the North-East.

In response to this worrying situation, the North-East Strategic Health Authority (SHA) announced it is to spend an extra £5m on measures to reduce infections.

Reduction in MRSA and C. Difficile is said to present "a major challenge" to NHS organisations in the North-East, according to a progress report presented to the SHA board yesterday.

The SHA, which has been allocated £5m from the Department of Health to tackle MRSA and C. Difficile rates, is working in partnership with chief executives and and directors of all North-East NHS organisations to try to get on top of the problem.

One of the responses is likely to be a high-profile campaign to raise awareness of the importance of hand hygiene and clean wards.

The latest figures for 2006-07 show that there were 369 confirmed cases of MRSA across the North-East NHS.

In November 2004, the Department of Health said it wanted to see numbers of MRSA cases reduced by 50 per cent by March 2008.

While MRSA rates are currently said to be "relatively stable" there is no sign of a significant downward trend.

This is in contrast to the national picture which has shown a reduction in recent months.

Last year, there were 2,965 C. Difficile cases in people aged 65 and over in the regional NHS.

Every acute hospital trust in the country has agreed a local target to reduce cases of C. Difficile by between five and ten per cnet.

However, only three North-East acute hospital trusts are achieving this improvement to date.

In her report to the SHA, director of operations and regional nurse Lyn Simpson acknowledged there was a "high level of commitment and activity" across the North-East NHS, but said this had not resulted in a sustained reduction in the rates of MRSA and C. Dificile.

Initially, £2.4m worth of projects have been backed, including improvements to isolation facilities and clinical environments, development of specialist teams; expansion of screening programmes and partner- ship working with care homes to tackle cases arising outside hospital.