Matrons and nurses are to provide hospital bosses with frontline accounts of the fight against superbugs such as MRSA.

The NHS initiative is one of a series to be unveiled by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Health Secretary Alan Johnson this week.

Mr Johnson said the concerns of nursing staff and ward matrons about cleanliness and hospital-acquired infections appeared to be going unheeded.

In a move to ensure that their recommendations are not ignored by management, they will get the right to report direct to hospital boards four times a year.

The strategy follows a review of the NHS instigated by the Prime Minister shortly after he took over from Tony Blair in June.

"The problem we have identified is many matrons and nurses tell us they are the experts on how to resolve this problem on their wards, but their voice is not heard clearly enough on the hospital board, the senior echelons," Mr Johnson told Sky News.

"That's why we are introducing an obligation for them to be listened to at least four times a year."

The move to give matrons and nurses more say over efforts to tackle hospital- acquired infections comes after they were recently given control of budgets to improve cleanliness on wards.

The money is to be spent on things such as new washbasins and bed linen, or other items which frontline staff feel will hamper the spread of infections.

Other measures being adopted by the Government to help tackle the superbugs include new guidance on clothing which will see the demise of the traditional doctors' white coat.

Hospitals will have to adopt a new "bare below the elbow" dress code, meaning no sleeves, no watches, no jewellery and avoiding wearing a tie when carrying out clinical activity.

The guidance suggests that white coats should not normally be worn because the cuffs are probably heavily contaminated.

Hospitals will also be issued with new clinical guidance about isolating patients who become infected with Clostridium difficile or MRSA.

In addition, a new legal requirement will be placed on all chief executives to report all MRSA and C.difficile infections to the Health Protection Agency.

General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Dr Peter Carter, said: "Nurses are at the forefront of initiatives to tackle healthcare associated infections but in order to be successful we need commitment from the entire NHS team, from all staff, in all disciplines and in every healthcare setting."

All acute health trusts are expected to implement the new guidance on clothing by January.