Disciplinary action could be taken against Airedale Hospital staff who persistently fail to wash their hands often enough.

The stark warning was issued at a meeting of Airedale NHS Trust.

Chief executive Adam Cairns said the feedback he had received suggested that while most staff were complying with hygiene rules, some needed to do better.

"We need to ramp up our enforcement," he said. "We will move people into the disciplinary arena if they fail to comply with hand hygiene rules."

Director of corporate development Ann Wagner said she was impressed by the hygiene standards shown by hospital porters and other non-medical staff.

Director of nursing Bridget Fletcher presented the trust board with a quarterly cleanliness report based on information supplied by matrons and clinical leaders.

She said remedial action would be taken in instances where these reports showed deficiencies in standards of cleanliness.

Miss Fletcher said Airedale's ongoing deep clean programme was proving a success. She said the ten-week initiative - which includes intensive steam cleaning techniques - was reaching areas of the hospital which were difficult to get to through normal procedures.

Non-executive director Alan Sutton said it was important to stress the deep clean was further enhancing the hospital and was not required because the building was dirty.

Mr Cairns said the scheme had been good for the morale of cleaning staff, adding he wanted to secure a commitment to make it a regular event.

On the issue of MRSA, Mr Cairns said the hospital was currently set to meet its targets for reducing the number of patients contracting the bug. But he said there was little margin for error, as Airedale could miss its target if it had only one more MRSA case than expected.

The trust recorded a total of ten cases of MRSA between April 2007 and January 2008.