What is a Healthcare Associated Infection?
HCAI’s are infections acquired as a result of treatment in the healthcare settings.
We can reduce the risk of HCAI’s in several ways:
- Education and training – we work with clinical and non-clinical staff via the Trust’s induction and mandatory training programmes and locally at ward and department level.
- Advice – we are a source of expert advice for staff, to ensure that they have safe working practices.
- Audit – we monitor aspects of care, quality of cleaning and hand-hygiene. Policies and guidelines are audited to ensure that best practice is followed.Surveillance – robust surveillance on targeted infections reporting all results back to the frontline staff.
- Outbreaks – we investigate the cause of an outbreak and advice on how to control it.
- Policies – Producing IP&C policies in line with government guidelines, which are readily available to all staff via the Trust’s intranet.
- Support and Reassurance – to patients and their families using our service
All staff have a responsibility to maintain a clean and tidy environment in which patients are cared for – this is essential in preventing the spread of healthcare associated infections.
The next time you visit someone in hospital or have direct patient contact, please remember to clean your hands before you enter and after you leave the Ward. You will also find sinks and alcohol based hand gel in wall dispensers throughout the hospital that you can use to decontaminate your hands.
Infection Prevention and Control is everyone’s business – please help us to help you.
If you are a patient or a visitor to the hospital, please view the below links for your information, advice and to address any queries you may have.
- Top 10 tips for visitors to the hospital
- MRSA
- C. diff
- Norovirus
If you have any queries, concerns that are not answered in the above links or would like further information please discuss with your doctor or the manager of the ward or area you are being treated in.