Most patients go in to hospital expecting to get better. Unfortunately, some only get worse. About 5,000 patients die each year from infections caught in hospitals.

Poor standards of cleanliness are partly to blame for this terrible statistic. A report claims that a third of NHS hospitals are "filthy". One in three hospitals failed basic hygiene checks on wards.

Last month, we reported the claim of Sheridan Stead that a lack of hygiene in York District Hospital contributed to the death of her mother, Joan Hargreaves. Hospital chiefs admitted that hygiene on her ward was an issue.

The link between dirt and infection has been known about since Joseph Lister pioneered antiseptic medicine in the 1870s. Today, we read about pioneering medical treatments every day, but we appear to have forgotten the basics.

Many of our hospitals are simply not clean enough. They are by no means filthy, but they fail to meet the high sanitary standards vital for a healthy environment.

This is not the fault of the nurses. They have to work in these poor conditions, and are often the first to complain about them.

Neither is it usually the fault of the cleaners. Poorly paid and with little time to do the job properly, they often only skim the surface rather than scrub the wards until they are disinfected.

The results are all too obvious to medical staff and patients. Complaints by users of York District Hospital, published in the Evening Press tonight, describe tables that were not cleaned between meals and layers of dust found in wards.

Dirty hospitals are symbolic of an under-funded health service. Any extra resources are being directed at front line medical services - cleaning budgets are often stretched to breaking point.

It is time that hospital cleaning was regarded as a front line medical service, and funded accordingly. This should prove cost-effective: in-hospital infections cost the NHS about £1 billion a year.

Updated: 10:37 Monday, January 15, 2001