The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford has the lowest rates in England for a potentially deadly superbug.

Staff have been praised for their work to combat methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which comes two years after they struggled against a 40 per cent increase in the infection.

The bacteria preys on vulnerable patients unable to fight it when it enters their blood stream, and is common among elderly and infirm people staying in hospitals.

In a Department of Health survey of 177 hospital trusts in England between April 2002 and March 2003, the NOC had the lowest number of patients affected by the bacteria.

Individual trusts were not named in the report, but staff at the hospital in Windmill Road, Headington, say the risk of infection was 0.02 per cent -- 245 times less than the hospital with the highest risk of 4.9 per cent.

The Chief Medical Officer's team visited to find out how staff achieved such a low rate. NOC consultant physician Dr Tony Berendt said that as having an excellent infection control team, the small hospital had few emergency patients and could identify people as MRSA carriers in advance of their treatment.

"The infection control team has established a fair amount of training and auditing, as well as developing ways of identifying skin carriers of MRSA. It is usually confined to people who have had contact with healthcare institutions, so we screen people who've been in nursing homes or in hospital within the past year.

"Our surgeons are also much more used to thinking about infection, and have always managed it effectively with hand washing, screening and isolation -- the bread and butter of control," said Dr Berendt.

"It's also easier for us here because we are smaller and more focused than a lot of hospitals. For example, at the John Radcliffe Hospital it would be different because of the type of patients they deal with and the emergency pressures they have."

The NOC's success has been praised by the Commission for Health Improvement during a recent inspection report.

The authors said: "The trust has taken a pro-active approach to managing infection control. CHI is impressed by staff awareness throughout the organisation of MRSA. The trust has impressively low infection rates."

In January 2001, the Oxford Mail revealed that cases of MRSA infection at the NOC had risen by 40 per cent. Numbers were so high that staff were using rooms in the private Mayfair Ward to isolate patients infected with the bug.

The other hospital trusts in Oxfordshire declined to give the Oxford Mail their figures for MRSA infection.