The hospital said it reported all cases of the bug to help control it

The region's main hospital last month came top of a league table of deaths from the superbug MRSA.

The Office for National Statistics said 22 patients died as a as a result of the so-called superbug in 2002.

The hospital said that it was as a direct result of those figures that a task force was being set up to review hospital cleanliness.

Patients said in a survey published on Wednesday that most are happy with their care.

But the GMB union, which represents many staff at the hospital, has invited the health secretary John Reid to discuss Derriford's cleaning standards which it says are not up to scratch.

The hospital said it met government-set cleaning standards.

It said that the bug was actually only a contributory factor to the deaths of 10 people but that the figures were high because it reported all MRSA cases, despite it not being mandatory, even if they did not contribute to deaths.