Recognition and management of an outbreak of infection

GOVERNANCE

Infection Prevention Solutions

Infection prevention and control has a key role to play in the clinical governance framework of any health and care organisation. The following activities should be considered an essential element of local IPC activity:

• development of annual IPC programme and annual statement • the implementation and monitoring of policies • the education of all staff • surveillance and reporting of occurrences of infection

Providers are required to have a nominated IPC lead who prepares and reports on the annual IPC Programme which outlines activities required to be undertaken to provide assurance under the Code of Practice.

The IPC lead should report directly to the organisation’s registered provider and produces an annual statement outlining the organisation’s IPC arrangements and activities including compliance information.

Specialist advice on IPC should be available to all staff. This may be through commissioning organisations (e.g Public Health at the local authority or the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) or other providers of expertise e.g. Public Health England health protection teams.

INFORMATION SHARING

The Code of Practice requires providers to share information on IPC activities and outcomes with clients.

Providers are also required to share patient information as appropriate with other health and care providers having due regard to patient confidentiality requirements.

TRAINING

Infection prevention and control training is a mandatory requirement at induction for all staff groups and as part of mandatory updates for all staff involved in service users’ care. Training attendance records must be maintained and reported through internal governance frameworks. All training delivered should be evaluated by delegates.

The Code of Practice does not specify the frequency of update training. However, the UK wide Core Skills Training Framework (www.skillsforhealth.org.uk) specifies a frequency of annual training for mandatory core subjects, which includes infection prevention and control.

Details of the IPC training programme should be outlined in the IPC Annual Programme.