All NHS organisations must ensure that they have effective systems in place to control healthcare associated infection and we are fully committed to ensuring resources are allocated to effectively protect patients, their relatives, staff and visiting members of the public.
Nothing has had higher priority for the Trust than improving our performance in tackling hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile.
A dedicated Infection Control Team has been created headed by the Director of Infection Prevention and Control. A Consultant Medical Microbiologist is designated as the Infection Control Doctor and team also includes specialist nurses, a clinical scientist involved in surveillance and microbiologists specialising in adult medicine and paediatrics.
The Infection Control Team is committed to preventing and minimizing the spread of infection. This includes:
- Constantly improving practice to reduce the incidence of infections acquired in hospital
- Robust surveillance on targeted infections reporting all results back to the frontline staff
- Education and training of all staff via the Trust’s Induction and mandatory training programmes and locally at ward and department level
- Producing Infection Control Policies in line with government guidelines, which are readily available to all staff in hard copy and via the Trust’s intranet
- Audit of policies and guidelines to ensure that best practice is followed
- Supporting and reassuring patients and their families using our services