Chrome-plated and stainless steel fittings at a Birmingham hospital are being replaced with copper to see if the metal can kill MRSA bacteria.

Selly Oak Hospital has been chosen for an 18-month trial to begin next month, it was revealed yesterday.

The European Copper Institute made the announcement after scientists at Southampton University and Aston University, in Birmingham, found copper's "antimicrobial" properties can kill the superbug within 90 minutes.

It chose Selly Oak, run by University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, because it is a specialist trauma centre with an advanced microbiology unit.

About 80 per cent of MRSA transmission is through surface contact, with people unwittingly picking up the infection from doors, railings, or taps.

If the trial is successful, a wholesale switch to copper in thousands of hospitals across Europe is on the cards.

All fittings on medical ward B4 at Selly Oak will be replaced with copper, produced and donated free by Midland firms.

Professor Tom Elliot, the trust's deputy medical director, said existing fitments were brass, which contains copper, but had been covered in chrome "to make them look nice".

He added: "This negates any properties in the copper alloy which could kill bugs.

"Everything from door handles, push-plates, bath taps and even doctors' pens will be fashioned out of copper.

"The number of MRSA contacts will be measured alongside another unmodified wards here.

"Potentially, it is very, very exciting if we find that copper actually works in a clinical environment, following the laboratory tests in Southampton and here in Birmingham."

Health Protection Agency figures published in January revealed the trust had reduced the number of new MRSA cases by nearly a third (31.5 per cent) last year.

Prof Elliot added: "While we can never be complacent when it comes to dealing with micro-organisms like MRSA and Clostridium Difficile, if this trial works it could be extended throughout the hospital and beyond.

"Copper is an intelligent metal and it can also be used in fabrics, so we could also see MRSA-resistant uniforms and blankets being developed in future."n Screening people for MRSA before they have a hospital operation would make a "significant difference" to the numbers dying from the superbug, according to an expert.

Professor Richard James, director of the Centre for Healthcare Associated Infections at the University of Nottingham, said screening people and then isolating them until their MRSA status was known would have a dramatic effect on infection rates.

At present, about 40 per cent of staphylococcus infections in blood are MRSA, meaning they are resistant to the antibiotic methicillin. But with screening and then isolation, that figure would drop to less than one per cent within six years, he said.