"Significant failings" at all levels of leadership have been blamed for the deaths of 90 patients who contracted a bacterial infection in three English hospitals. According to an investigation by the British Healthcare Commission, health officials are to blame for the unsafe circumstances surrounding the infections of more than 1,000 patients at the hospitals.

The patients were infected with Clostridium difficile which can cause diarrhea, colitis and other intestinal problems, the Commission said on its website. Nurses at three hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells National Health System (NHS) trust were too busy to wash their hands and left patients in their own excrement, the commission added. The trust's Chief Executive Rose Gibb resigned last week.

The deaths occurred during a two-and-a-half year period, prompting a general probe into the group's practices and overall cleanliness. Britain's superbug infection rates of bacteria like Clostridium difficile have skyrocketed in years, CNN reported.

The Healthcare Commission on Thursday published a report concluding that between April 2004 and September 2006, 90 patients died out of more than 1,170 infected in three hospitals. Sixty of those deaths occurred in two major outbreaks; the first of the two outbreaks occurred between October and December 2005 affecting 150 patients.

Even while the monthly number of new patients with C. difficile doubled, the hospitals failed to identify the outbreak. A second outbreak that occurred in April to September 2006 affected 258 patients. Even then, the hospitals failed to put in place measures to manage and prevent infection, the investigation showed.

There were other problems, including the shortage of nurses, poor care for patients and poor processes for managing the movement of patients from one ward to another, all of which contributed to the risk of spreading the infection.

Patients, including those with Clostridium difficile, were often moved between wards, increasing the risk of spreading infection. Old buildings had few single rooms to isolate patients. In the second outbreak, an isolation ward was not established until August, four months after it began.

"What happened to the patients at this trust was a tragedy. This report fully exposes the reasons for that tragedy, so that the same mistakes are never made again," said Anna Walker, the Commission's chief executive.