Health service chiefs are accused today of sitting on their hands while superbugs ran out of control in hospitals.

A report from the National Audit Office (NAO) blames poor working practices in hospitals and a continuing lack of cleanliness and hygiene for rising infection rates.

Numbers of hospital blood infections by the bug Staphylococcus aureus have gone up eight per cent in England from 17,933 in 2001/2002 to 19,311 in 2003/2004.

Of these, about 40 per cent were the potentially deadly MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) strain that is resistant to most known antibiotics.

British hospitals are said to have one of the worst MRSA infection rates in Europe, outstripping countries such as Greece, Romania and Bulgaria.

Hospital acquired infections currently cost the NHS about £1bn each year and claim at least 5,000 deaths.

No one knows how many people are killed by MRSA, but the bug was mentioned in 800 death certificates in 2002.

The NAO said that despite new measures designed to bring hospital acquired infections under control, little had changed on the ground since it first reported on the problem in 2000.

Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said the picture was "bleak".

He said: "It is outrageous that, four years on from its original report, the NAO is still highlighting problems of poor hospital cleanliness, lax hand-washing practices among clinical staff, under-resourced infection control teams and a general culture among NHS staff of thinking that good infection control practice is somebody else's problem.

"People in hospital for treatment should not have to fear catching a possibly deadly infection while they are there.

"They should certainly not have to wait another four years for the NHS to stop sitting on its hands and start taking serious and effective action to improve hospital acquired infection rates."

The fact that MRSA infection rates in Britain were among the worst in Europe was "a matter of shame", he said.

The NAO said more had to be done to improve working practices in hospitals.

In particular, it called for obligatory induction training in infection control for all hospital staff - a step further than any taken by Health Secretary Dr John Reid in his new strategy for beating hospital superbugs, outlined on Monday.

The evidence showed that MRSA infection rates were up to seven times higher in some NHS trusts than in others.

London hospitals recorded the highest rates, and year-on-year increases were seen in the South-East, North-West, North-East and West Midlands. Only the Eastern region showed decreases.

But most North-East hospitals have relatively low levels of MRSA outbreaks, and two North Yorkshire hospitals - York and Harrogate - have some of the lowest MRSA rates in the country.

York trust has slipped 42 places by reporting a higher rate of 0.13 MRSA cases per 1,000 bed days.

Harrogate leapfrogged above York with a rate of 0.04 per 1,000 bed days.

Despite the setback, York appears to have benefited from a scheme which has seen doctors and nurses wearing bottles of alcohol-based hand cleansing gel on their belts.

Sir John Bourn, comptroller and auditor general of the NAO, said the Department of Health had made important progress in highlighting the problem of hospital-acquired infection.

But he added: "I am concerned that, four years on from my original report, the NHS still does not have a proper grasp of the extent and cost of hospital-acquired infection in trusts."

As well as calling for compulsory infection control training, the NAO urged the Department of Health to speed up development of mandatory surveillance of hospital-acquired infection.

Health Secretary John Reid said: "It is clear from today's National Audit Office report that some parts of the NHS have to do more to control this threat and match the achievements of hospitals which maintain low MRSA rates."

He said the Government's plans, set out earlier this week, would help to bring all hospitals up to the level of the best.

Dr Reid said: "We want to give patients a greater role. And frontline staff, like matrons, will have more power to improve infection control."