Copper change

Stainless steel hospital surfaces might look spotlessly clean, but the reported 300,000 patients who pick up infections such as MRSA in the UK each year tell a different story.

According to the

, 5,000 of those are likely to die as a result, and it costs the

an estimated £1bn a year.

With this in mind, a Birmingham hospital has launched an 18-month clinical trial to establish whether the installation of copper surfaces will kill MRSA and other hospital-acquired infections.

The trial follows years of laboratory tests at

which established that the natural antimicrobial properties of copper and its alloys dramatically reduce the presence of MRSA compared with stainless steel — the most commonly used surface-metal in health institutions.

Those findings will be put to the test in Selly Oak Hospital, and if the trial is successful, copper surfaces could be installed in hospitals across the UK.

One of the general wards at Selly Oak had all of its bathroom taps, toilet flush-handles, grabs, door handles and push-plates replaced by copper. Even the pens used by staff are copper alloy. All of this is necessary to determine the trial's success because 80 per cent of MRSA transmission is through surface contacts.