A Midland health trust has become the first in the world to use a new MRSA test to screen patients for the superbug before they are admitted to hospital.

The Department of Health is urging hospitals to routinely screen all in-patients for the bacteria, but currently they have to wait up to three days for the results.

Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust is piloting a speedier swab test in its admissions units at City Hospital in Winson Green, Birmingham, and Sandwell General in West Bromwich.

More than 300 patients have undergone the tests in the past fortnight, with less than 10 per cent testing positive for MRSA.

Health care assistants carry out the test by inserting a double ended swab in both nostrils before it is processed by a machine in the admissions unit, which takes just 72 minutes to produce a result.

The conventional laboratory test, still used in British hospitals, would take three days to grow the MRSA bacterium to achieve a result.

But the GeneXpert multiplies the bacteria's DNA and can count miniscule amounts of MRSA in an extremely short time.

It works along the lines of modern coffee machines, and can run the same process for different bugs or substances by inserting the relevant cartridge.

The trial will continue at both hospitals until 1,000 patients have undergone the new screening process.

Dr Beryl Oppenheim, the trust's director of infection prevention and control, said: "This new test means that patients who need to be admitted can be tested quickly and efficiently at the admissions ward, before they are moved to a medical ward.

"It allows us to provide the best care to keep them safe and if they test positive we can hopefully prevent their MRSA causing them any problems.

"It is a great advance in the fight against MRSA, and the Department of Health are watching our trial with great interest, as it may well be something that is rolled out to other NHS Trusts in the country."

Cepheid, the US firm which specialises in molecular diagnostics, based the test on a similar process it used to screen US Mail workers for anthrax, following a series of contamination scares.

Martin Colla, director of UK operations, said: "Sandwell Hospital has taken a leadership position in reducing MRSA infection rates with the world's first announced near-patient screening program.

"Ours GeneXpert System and Xpert MRSA products are enabling healthcare institutions with a new kind of technology for the rapid detection of MRSA, and we're excited to be a part of Sandwell's groundbreaking program."

Although the test is five times more expensive than the existing lab test, which cost about £4 each, Dr Oppenheim was confident Government officials will be encouraged by the results so far.

She added: "The speed of this test allows us to give patients who produce MRSA positive results the necessary eradication therapy, rather than have them wait three days in which time the infection could have been passed on.

"As far as we're aware Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trusts is the first in the world to use this on 'live' patients."