Infection Prevention
Our Infection Prevention and Control team is a group of specialist practitioners who advise, support and empower all staff, visitors and patients to minimise the risk of healthcare associated infections. An extension of the IPC team is the IPC Champion role within the clinical areas of the Hospital.
Policies and guidance
Community guidance is likely to differ in hospital where people are more vulnerable, please follow the guidance you are given by staff whilst within our Hospital.
How can you help?
The best way to prevent infections is to ensure we practise excellent hand hygiene.
Whilst in hospital everyone must regularly clean their hands with soap and water for 20 seconds or hand sanitiser. You are encouraged to ask staff, visitors and patients if you think they may not have washed their hands.
There are two standards methods for hand hygiene:
- Hands must be washed with soap and water if they are visibly dirty, or if you have been in contact with a patient with diarrhoea (or their environment).
- Hand sanitiser must be used frequently if hands appear visibly clean.
How are we monitored?
In order to register with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to provide care, NHS Trusts must take part in an assessment of whether they meet government regulations for managing infection, aimed at ensuring that patients, staff and others are protected against the identifiable risks of acquiring a health care associated infection, so far as is reasonably practicable.
The assessment is an extensive process, asking trusts to declare whether they are compliant with regulations. The CQC then cross-check this declaration with other performance information, including patient and staff surveys, annual CQC Inspection reports, trusts' declarations against core standards for infection prevention and control, such as rates of MRSA and Clostridium difficile infections.
For more information, please click visit the Care Quality Commission website.
Feedback
The Trust welcomes service user feedback and we would encourage you to report what you think we do well and areas where you think we can improve. You can do this either by speaking directly to a member of staff within your ward or department, you can contact our Patient Advice and Liaison service (PALS), or let us know on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
For more information about how you can contribute to infection prevention and control, please refer to the following documents:
Infection Prevention and Control - Guidelines for patients
Infection Prevention and Control - Guidelines for visitors
MRSA - information for patients, staff and relatives
Clostridium Difficile - Information for patients, staff and relatives
ESBLs- Information for patients, relatives and staff
VRE- Information for patients, staff and relatives
Norovirus- Information for patients, staff and relatives
CPE – information for patients, relatives and staff
To view our latest MRSA and C.Diff figures follow the link to our Open and Honest Care page.
You can click on this link to visit the UK Health Security Agency website.
In addition, please click on the following link to visit the Department of Health website.