Hospital handwashing campaign was 'exceptionally successful' One bed day counts as one patient in a bed for one day and five would count as one patient staying for five days or five patients staying for one day each. Clostridium difficile rates dropped from 16.75 per 10,000 bed days to 9.34. The study was conducted by the Royal Free Hospital in north London, University College London Medical School and the Health Protection Agency. There had been a major political drive on infection control in hospitals after rising rates of superbugs were claiming thousands of lives a year. Infection rates and soap and alcohol gel purchases were measured every three months across all 187 hospitals in England between 2005 and 2009. Lead author Dr Sheldon Stone of the UCL Medical School, said: "Until now we haven't been able to say whether national campaigns of this kind deliver tangible benefits for patients. What this study shows is that the cleanyourhands campaign, a centrally coordinated and funded strategy, produced sustained increases in the amounts of alcohol hand-rub and soap bought by hospitals, and that this in turn helped to reduce infection and improve health outcomes. The cleanyourhands campaign has been a real British success story. It has really changed the culture amongst NHS staff. Now the campaign has stopped, many in the infection control community would like to see the progress maintained and built upon with a new national hand hygiene strategy or an updated campaign. Professor Barry Cookson, Director of the Laboratory of Healthcare Associated Infection, at the HPA said: "This research paper shows that relatively simple measures such as handwashing and alcohol handrub can be exceptionally effective in combating the spread of harmful bacteria in healthcare establishments. Independent of all other measures we saw that the more soap and alcohol handrub were purchased the more levels of MRSA and C. difficile went down. Going forward it is these types of measures which will be at the forefront of the battle against the spread of bacteria.