Hospital staff have been warned they face a three strikes and you're out policy when it comes to hygiene.

Bosses at Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust have decided to link cleanliness results to their disciplinary procedures in a bid to tackle bugs such as MRSA and clostridium difficile.

Staff will receive a warning if they fail to meet standards on just one occasion. If they continue to miss targets, disciplinary procedures will be started.

The Trust's director of nursing, Denise Hagel, said: "We have created league tables of all the wards to show how everyone is performing.

"We need to keep on top of the situation, and one way to do that is to keep staff up to speed."

She explained all staff went through mandatory training updates, so they knew what to do.

Leaflets about hand hygiene have been sent out to all staff with their pay slips this month.

But Trust chairman Richard Bourne said the public had a role to play too.

He said: "We want to encourage patients and visitors to tell staff if they see something which is wrong.

"They should feel able to ask staff if they have washed their hands before dealing with them.

"We need to know when incidents happen so we can investigate and prevent it happening again."

He added the board was concerned because it was struggling with its MRSA targets, but just seven cases of C Difficile had been reported in April.