Richard Branson might seem an unlikely candidate to speak out on hospital infections, but he is vice-President of the Patient's Association and today has made a stinging attack on the numbers suffering from hospital infection. While infection rates are falling they are still alarmingly high:
The entrepreneur - whose daughter Holly is a doctor - told the BBC: "There have been some improvements, but the facts speak for themselves - and the facts are still horrific.
"It feels like they have tinkered with the problem rather than really got to the heart of the problem. The hospitals are there to cure people. They are not there to kill people."
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"In the airline industry if we had that kind of track record we would have been grounded years ago," he said.
"In the airline industry if there is an adverse event that information is sent out to every airline in the world.
"And every airline makes absolutely certain that that adverse event doesn't happen twice."