The Infection Prevention & Control Team
Prevention and control of infection is of utmost importance at Frimley Health.
Patients are often more susceptible to infection due to underlying disease, medical and surgical procedures, and immunosuppression, and we do everything we can to provide clean, safe care for our patients, in line with the ‘Health & Social Care Act 2008: Code of practice on the prevention and control of infections and related guidance’.
The Infection Prevention and Control Team provide the following co-ordinated cross-site service, monitored via an Annual Infection Prevention & Control Plan:
- Development, implementation, and monitoring of the infection prevention and control policies & guidelines.
- Audit and surveillance of clinical best practice, hospital cleanliness, antimicrobial stewardship, and healthcare-associated infections (and other alert organisms/ conditions).
- An advisory service to staff, patients and visitors on clinical and cleanliness issues, and capital projects.
- Infection prevention and control education(including hand hygiene and wearing of personal protective equipment (including masks)) for all grades of staff working within the trust, and for patients to enable them to manage infection risks.
- Management of outbreaks and patient placement for prevention and control of infections.
- Training and supporting a network of Infection Prevention and Control Link Representatives to champion best practice in all clinical areas.
Infection Prevention & Control is Everyone’s Responsibility
Patients and visitors also have a vital role to play in helping to support healthcare staff to prevent infection.
Hand Hygiene
Keeping hands clean while visiting or staying in hospital is the single most important thing you can do to protect yourself and others from infection. We advise patients and visitors to wash or sanitise their hands before eating, before and after visiting, and to wash hands after using the toilet.
Whilst In Hospital
- Personal hygiene is important when you are in hospital. This is helped by bringing in your own toiletries, and not sharing them with other patients.
- It’s ok to ask - Healthcare staff can help protect you by cleaning their hands. Do not be afraid to ask staff if they have cleaned their hands, and please do challenge staff if you do not see them cleaning their hands.
- Where possible keep your bed space uncluttered, to enable a high standard of cleaning to be undertaken.
- If you or your visitor have concerns about the cleanliness of the healthcare environment, please report this to the nurse/ midwife in charge.
- Dispose of any used tissues immediately into the waste bag provided.
Visitors
- Please refrain from visiting if you have been unwell in the previous 48 hours, particularly if you have had diarrhoea, vomiting, or symptoms of a respiratory virus infection.
- While we understand that visitors want to be close to their family or friend who is unwell, to protect any wounds or invasive devices our patients may have, we ask visitors to sit on the chairs provided in the wards, rather than on the beds.
- If you are visiting a patient being cared for in an isolation room/ ward, please speak to the nurse/ midwife in charge before visiting.
- For the safety of yourself and others, follow any additional guidance you are given to prevent transmission of infection in the healthcare setting you visit (for example, wearing of facemasks during periods of high respiratory virus infection prevalence).
Accessing data on healthcare-associated infection rates
Frimley Health reports healthcare-associated infections in line with national mandatory surveillance requirements and completes post-infection review to identify learning and address actions to prevent infection. Trust healthcare-associated infection data for infections such as MRSA (Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) bacteraemia (bloodstream infection) are accessible on the UK Health Security Agency’s website.
If you have any questions about infection prevention and control during your stay in, or visit to, hospital, please contact the nurse or midwife in charge of the ward, or you can contact the infection prevention and control team directly for information and advice:
IPC Team for Frimley Park and Farnham Hospitals, and community services: 0300 613 8545
IPC Team for Wexham Park and Heatherwood Hospitals: 0300 615 3641