THE county's biggest hospital has done so well in the fight against a potentially lethal bug that it has been rewarded with an extra ward.

The University Hospital of North Staffordshire (UHNS) has halved the monthly number of cases of Clostridium Difficile, or C-Diff, over the last nine months.

And that has left a specialised quarantine ward set aside for its victims redundant.

So the 18 beds on ward 122 will now be converted back into general use for patients needing care for a wide range of other illnesses.

The bonus comes as demand for the Hartshill complex's 1,200 beds is being stretched to the limit by a flood of people needing treatment for conditions linked to the coldest winter for 30 years.

And it will also help compensate for the loss of beds to another winter bug, norovirus, which has closed between three and 13 wards over the past two months.

Since 2005, when the hospital had the fifth worst record in Britain at containing C-Diff , the number of cases has tumbled.

It previously reported more than 700 infections a year but is now on course to bring the figure down to 348 patients – and beat Government targets by 100 cases – by the end of the financial year.

November and December saw just 13 and 15 cases logged respectively. That is in comparison to the 30 recorded last April.

The breakthrough is down to a string of new measures including new instruments and equipment, better hygiene and – most crucially – the banning of two antibiotics linked to the bug.

The C-Diff ward, where victims could be nursed in isolation to prevent it spreading to other patients, was opened two-and-a-half years ago.

But a snap audit in December showed there was an average of nine beds empty there at any one time.

After ruling the ward was no longer needed in the battle against the bug, officials have now reverted to the previous system, whereby patients contracting C-Diff were nursed in side rooms on their own ward.

The C-Diff ward will be re-opened immediately if cases start to climb again.

UHNS Trust chairman Mike Brereton said: "This is excellent news, particularly as it comes during a winter when we have seen emergency patients running at levels most staff have never experienced in their whole careers.

"We have coped because of their heroic efforts and the board extends its thanks to them. It also demonstrates the emphasis we put on patient safety which is our top priority."

Helen Jenkinson, deputy director of infection prevention and control, said: "We continue to have a zero tolerance policy to all avoidable infections but, while the audit found the extent of empty beds on ward 122, it also showed 71 per cent of side rooms across all other adult ward were not being used for infection control."

UHNS is also conquering the fight against the other hospital-acquired infection, MRSA, with just 17 cases recorded between April and December compared to its Whitehall target of 34.

At last September's annual meeting, trust chief executive Julia Bridgewater pledged to rid both bugs from the premises by the time the area's £400 million superhospital development opened in 2112.