The number of deaths caused by two superbugs soared in 2005, raising new concerns over the standard of hygiene at hospitals across the country. According to government statistics, the number of deaths linked to MRSA rose by 39% in 2005 and deaths linked to a second superbug, Clostridium difficile, increased by 69%.

The head of the health inspectorate accused the government yesterday of failing to give enough priority to patient safety while Age Concern accused it of shirking responsibility for cleaning hospitals.

Levin Wheller of the Office for National Statistics said cases of superbugs had increased dramatically since MRSA emerged in the 1990s. C. difficile is now recorded as the cause or a factor in more than twice as many deaths as MRSA: 1,629 people died after contracting MRSA and 3,807 after C. difficile in 2005.

The new figures show that C. difficile-related deaths now outnumber deaths on UK roads. In 2005, 3,201 people were killed in road accidents, a 1% fall on 2004.

Men are twice as likely to contract MRSA as women. Mr Wheller suggested one reason could be personal hygiene; other factors might include the type of operations they are having. The vast majority of deaths were among the over-75s.

Part of the increase could be due to better awareness among doctors of both infections. Separate figures from the Health Protection Agency show a 5.5% increase in C. difficile cases in 2006 and a levelling off of MRSA. The ONS could not explain the differences or suggest how much of the increase they identified was down to better reporting from doctors.

Sir Ian Kennedy, chairman of the Healthcare Commission, said health ministers had imposed a welter of targets on the NHS since 1997 to change behaviour in hospitals and GP surgeries. But they did not give patient safety the attention it deserved. Apart from a target to reduce deaths from MRSA, there were no other signals from the centre that patient safety was the NHS's most important issue, he told a safety seminar in London.

"Even when targets ruled the day, there were none relating to the [overall] safety of patients. Yet targets were the way the government indicated its priorities. I am not advocating a wholesale return to targets. But I am saying patient safety should be everyone's business and everyone's responsibility," he said.

Sir Ian urged patients to speak out if they were about to be treated by staff who did not seem to have washed their hands. Sir Ian and heads of other NHS organisations signed a charter, committing them to change the NHS culture at every level, to make safety the fundamental priority.

Yesterday it was announced that two patients died this week after contracting C. difficile during an outbreak at the Medway Maritime hospital in Gillingham, Kent. Wards had been closed after four patients at the hospital contracted the bug, which causes severe vomiting and diarrhoea. Two, one in their 60s and the other in their 70s, later died.

The new figures on superbugs are contained in the ONS's wide-ranging health statistics report, which also reveals:

·The number of teenage pregnancies has fallen slightly. Pregnancies among 13 to 15-year-olds crept up by 4%, with 300 more babies born to under-16s in 2005.

· Conceptions overall went up by 1.3% between 2004 and 2005; just under 11,000 more babies were born in 2005. The fastest increase was among the older age group with a 3.5% increase in those over 35.

· Alcohol-related deaths have doubled since the early 1990s, with Scots now accounting for as many deaths as the rest of the UK put together.

The government called the presence of MRSA in hospitals a major challenge for the NHS but claimed that figures actually showed infection rates are falling. Health minister Lord Hunt said: "We have ... provided £50m funding which will give a cash injection to trusts to boost infection control measures. Many people who have healthcare-associated infections are very sick and are vulnerable to infections, not all of which are avoidable, but we are ensuring that the NHS has good hand hygiene and correct clinical procedures to prevent the ones that are."

Andrew Lansley, shadow health secretary, said: "The staggering increase in deaths from C. difficile and MRSA is worrying enough and the increasing presence of more dangerous strains of C. difficile and MRSA will become a bigger problem without an urgent and rigorous strategy now." Norman Lamb, for the Lib Dems, said: "This extraordinary rise in cases of MRSA is evidence that the government's strategy to deal with superbugs is failing."

Gordon Lishman, director general of Age Concern, said: "By failing to set national targets, the government is shirking its responsibility and failing thousands of NHS patients, many of them older."