WILTSHIRE Primary Care Trust languishes in the bottom four of the national hospital hygiene league and is the worst performing trust in the south west region, according to the Healthcare Commission.

The trust, which is responsible for community hospitals in the county, is failing to meet three key hygiene standards by not doing enough to cut infections in its hospitals, dispose of medical waste and sanitise equipment.

The league does not involve Salisbury District Hospital, which is run by the Salisbury NHS Healthcare Foundation Trust and is responsible for its own monitoring.

A spokesman said this week that the district hospital complies with all the core standards.

The Healthcare Commission report, based on trusts self-reporting on whether they met 24 core government standards on care, shows that one in four NHS trusts in England fail to comply with basic hygiene standards.

Katherine Murphy, from the national Patients' Association, said more people are dying from the C.difficile bug than on Britain's roads and the death toll from MRSA is equivalent to two train crashes every week. She said: "These are avoidable infections."

The Wiltshire trust admitted this week that it had met just 27 out of 44 standards set by the Government.

Alison Knowles, director of corporate affairs and communications at Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, said: "Wiltshire PCT published its declaration of compliance in a paper taken to our board meeting in public in April.

"We carried out a rigorous assessment of our compliance against the core standards, and declared that there are a number of areas where we do not currently meet the level which we expect of ourselves, and which the people of Wiltshire have a right to expect of their local health services.

"As an organisation still in its first year of existence, Wiltshire PCT is in a strong position to ensure that local health services are designed and developed to ensure that the PCT can demonstrate in future years that we comply fully with the national standards.

"For example, the ongoing development of neighbourhood teams, which closely align with social care services provided by the county council, will help us provide evidence in future years of our co-operative work with local authorities."

The Avon Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership, which has responsibility for Fountain Way Hospital in Wilton Road, Salisbury, also fell down in seven core areas, including cleanliness, and is one of 17 trusts which have failed to meet the required standards.

The Great Western Ambulance Service, whose area includes south Wiltshire, failed in nine areas.