Medway's NHS Trust has been named as one of the worst in Britain for bedsores.

Staff observed 141 pressure sores at Medway Maritime Hospital between February 2010 and January 2011, figures show.

Medway NHS Foundation Trust dismissed the total, which was the fourth-highest in the UK and more than 100 above Medway's predicted figure for the year.

Bedsores kill almost 1,000 NHS patients a year, nearly as many as superbug MRSA, and a campaign group said they were "highly preventable".

A spokesman for Action Against Medical Accidents said: "There should be zero tolerance on pressure ulcers. They result in unbelievable suffering for the patient and distress for their families.

"This is a problem not just in hospital settings but across a range of care settings within the community.

"Allowing patients to develop pressure ulcers in a hospital setting is completely unacceptable and reflects significant failures in care."

The data was collated by health watchdog Dr Foster and placed Medway second in a league table for "relative risk".

Yet a hospital spokesman questioned the data and said pressure sores in Medway had halved over the last year.

The spokesman added: "The analysis by Dr Foster provides no distinction between pressure sores acquired whilst a patient is in the hospital and those admitted from the community.

"Following an investigation where all the patients' notes were reviewed, we found anomalies which led us to believe that the number of patients with pressure sores is lower than that in the Dr Foster report."

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