A report from the Health Protection Agency demands more be done to protect people from potentially lethal hospital bugs, ahead of a report on the latest infection rates.

Previous figures showed Clostridium difficile had risen in England, though MRSA was falling, but any drop had not been significant, failing to meet government target's.

The Patients Association say all patients should be screened and infection control budgets ring-fenced, adding too many people are dying from these infections. and lessons must be learnt from other countries such as Holland which have got infection rates close to zero.

The Agency also say NHS chief executives more accountable and that too often infection control budgets are raided when there are cuts.

The figures due out today are expected to follow the current trend.

The C. difficile rate rose by 5.5% in England during the first three quarters of 2006 to 42,625 and the MRSA rate fell by 5% to 3,391.

In November 2004, then health secretary John Reid pledged MRSA rates would be halved by April 2008, but a later government memo, sent to ministers by a Department of health official last year, predicted it would only be cut by a third by then.

The same memo said C. difficile was now "endemic throughout the health service, with virtually all trusts reporting cases".

Ministers have asked NHS trusts to set their own targets to reduce C. difficile rates.

The HPA does not record deaths although figures from 2004 show that MRSA was a possible factor on over 1,000 death certificates in England and Wales, while C difficile was listed on over 2,000.

Dr Mark Enright, an expert on infections from Imperial College London, said: "C. difficile has hit the NHS out of nowhere and we are still getting our head around dealing with it."

What Are The Bugs C. difficile - a bacterium found in the gut of up to 3% of healthy adults and 66% of infants, although it rarely causes problems Certain antibiotics can disturb the normal balance, allowing the bug to thrive and causing severe diarrhoea and in some cases severe inflammation of the bowel which can be life threatening

MRSA - clinical name, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a 'catch all' for any strain of Staphylococcus bacteria which is resistant to one or more conventional antibiotics. MRSA infections can cause a broad range of symptoms depending on the part of the body that is infected

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