Staff at the James Paget University Hospital have been congratulated after not one case of the deadly infectious bugs MRSA and C-diff was found on wards.

In October, the Gorleston hospital did not have one case of either bug reported. And the hospital said its overall infection rate for the last year had also been very low with only seven cases of MRSA and 36 cases of C-diff, well below set targets.

The absence of C-diff on hospital wards comes nearly three years after the deaths of 18 patients linked to C-diff.

After the deaths the hospital put in place a raft of measures to rid the building of infectious bugs including a �1m cleaning blitz in 2007 and the opening of an isolation ward.

The successful measures included effective antibiotic prescriptions, deep cleaning wards daily, ensuring people wash their hands and patient monitoring.

Nick Coveney, director of nursing and transformation, said: "This is a fantastic achievement.

“A big thank you must go to our staff, particularly the infection control team, who have been working under tremendous pressure and yet still maintained our robust infection prevention and control measures to ensure patient safety is our number one priority.”

“We have also been refreshing the important messages that help to stop the spread of infection in the hospital through our Think Pink public awareness-raising campaign.”