ON Friday, I visited the Alexandra Hospital to see for myself the work that is going on to tackle hospital-acquired infections.

These infections are transferred in a variety of ways and there are many ways of reducing the risks they present to patients.

For instance, changes to working practices so that invasive procedures are kept to a minimum and hand-wash gel available on an individual basis to allow health workers a clean between seeing different patients.

In fact, at the entrance to each ward there are gel dispensers and visitors, as well as patients, doctors and nurses, should use them every time they go past them.

However, the trust managers were keen to tell me that, while one case is a case too many, they have had just 57 cases in the whole of last year and that is out of the 82,000 patients they saw.

The trust says in the last three months, the figures for infections of MRSA have fallen again and if the trend continues, there will be only 20 in the next year.

I hope this proves to be right. We should be concerned about infections in hospital but we must not think everyone who goes there will come down with a bug!

Once the Alex was under threat of closure but now it is going from strength to strength.

Nearly £4 million is being spent on providing new facilities like a new audiology department, a new MRI scanning suite, a new orthopaedic out-patient clinic and consulting rooms. Plus there are new facilities for patients being discharged and for children who visit the hospital.

The A&E department now sees, treats and passes on the vast majority of patients within four hours and there are further improvements in the pipeline.

We can be proud of the success the hard work of staff at the Alex has achieved with the investment the Government has put into the NHS.

But we can help it too as individuals. Wash our hands before we enter the wards if we are visiting and don't visit if you have a tummy upset.

Make sure we use all the NHS services to get treatment - not just pitch up at A&E. Why not try NHS Direct or your GP for advice on treatment first? It may save you a trip and it will certainly help spread the load in the NHS.

Jacqui Smith MP