Minimising Infection Control and To Look At How Best Infection Control Can Be Reduced Within A NHS Hospital on a Private Ward

by

Executive Summary

Many features of the NHS conspire to make workforce planning different and difficult. It is often integrated with other planning processes. There are few available guidelines for workforce configurations of infection control (IC) teams or evidence that assesses the effectiveness of different staffing configurations. A telephone survey of IC practice in four NHS trusts in England was undertaken to assist an NHS foundation trust to evaluate the workforce options for reconfiguring their IC team. The calls were semi-structured, recorded qualitative data and lasted 30-40 minutes. The thematic analysis revealed three IC themes: working practices, workforce profiles and governance issues, and suggested that multi-disciplinary, hospital-based IC teams have a strategic approach to engagement with clinical areas. The background, purpose and findings of the survey are reported and the implications for the future evidence base of IC practice.

Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYII

INTRODUCTION1

CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND2

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROPOSED CHANGE6

EVALUATION10

QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY AND RESULTS12

KEY FINDINGS FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRE17

ACTIONS FOR INFECTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL TEAM18

CONCLUSION18

REFERENCES21

APPENDICES24

Questionnaire24

Minimising Infection Control and To Look At How Best Infection Control Can Be Reduced Within A NHS Hospital on a Private Ward

Introduction

Although less well developed than in the hospital sector, the infection prevention and control function is important to primary and community care. In each reorganisation in the NHS, any specialist workforce needs to align with that part of the system that holds the relevant responsibilities and duties. This paper describes how infection control nursing has shifted its focus over the past decade. It questions whether the primary care trust (PCT) will remain an appropriate employing organisation in the future, as those provider functions currently within PCTs move away. The challenge will then be to ensure that infection prevention and control remains prominent within the decision making of PCTs and practice-based commissioners, with expert infection control advice and support also remaining available to independent primary care practitioners. A market for infection prevention and control advice and support services would be possible, provided suitable employment conditions could be ensured.

Infection prevention and control in primary care and the community has had a low profile for many years, being overshadowed by the prominence given to healthcare associated infection within the hospital sector (Judge and Hill, 2008: 102). An additional challenge has been the frequent reorganisations within the NHS. In this paper, the experience of the changes in the past decade and how it has affected the employment of community-based infection control nurses (ICNs) is used to indicate what the next round of changes may bring. NHS reform is intended to bring benefits to patients from greater clarity in the expected standards, patient choice and more transparency in NHS spending, but may also bring new challenges to infection control.

The Workforce Review Team (WRT) was commissioned by an NHS foundation trust in England to evaluate the workforce options for reconfiguring their infection control (IC) team. This article outlines a qualitative information gathering exercise that ...