A common hospital bug increases the risk of death for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) six-fold, research has shown.

Scientists called for all IBD patients to be screened on admission to hospital to protect them against Clostridium difficile.

IBD, which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects about 240,000 people in the UK.

The autoimmune conditions cause symptoms of abdominal pain and diarrhoea, which can be severe enough to warrant admission to hospital. Researchers in London looked at NHS admission records from 2002 to 2008 and found a strong link between IBD, C diff, and death in hospital.

IBD patients infected with C diff were six times more likely to die than those who escaped the bug. After 30 days, their mortality rate was as high as 25 per cent.

The findings, reported in the journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, also showed that IBD patients with C diff had longer stays in hospital and were almost twice as likely to need gastrointestinal surgery. Typically they remained in hospital for 26 days, compared with five days for patients without C diff.