Infection Control Annual Statement 2024
Purpose
In line with the Health and Social Care Act 2008: Code of Practice on Prevention and Control of Infection and its related guidance, this Annual Statement will be generated each year.
We aim to keep our Practice clean and tidy and offer a safe environment to our patients and staff. We are proud of our Surgery and endeavour to ensure it is kept clean and well maintained at all times.
If you have any concerns about cleanliness or infection control, please report these to one of our staff.
Our GPs and Nursing staff follow our Infection Control Policy to ensure the care we deliver and the equipment we use is safe.
We take additional measures to ensure we maintain the highest standards:
- Encourage staff and patients to raise any issues or report any incidents relating to cleanliness and infection control. We can discuss these and identify improvements we can make to avoid any future problems.
- Carry out an annual infection control audit to make sure our infection control procedures are working (most recently in June 2024).
- Provide annual staff updates and training on cleanliness and infection control
- Review our policies and procedures to make sure they are adequate and meet national guidance.
- Maintain the premises and equipment to a high standard within the available financial resources and ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to reduce or remove all infection risk.
- Use washable or disposable materials for items such as couch rolls, modesty curtains, floor coverings, towels etc, and ensure that these are laundered, cleaned or changed frequently to minimise risk of infection.
- Make Alcohol Hand Rub Gel available throughout the building.
Extra measures during COVID-19 pandemic
During the COVID 19 Pandemic the Infection Control Link reviewed Practice processes in line with local and national guidance and adapted working practices to reduce spread and ensure that the COVID security of the Practice environment.Protective screens were fitted around Reception. All staff are reminded to wear face masks when walking round the building and during patient/visitor contact and were provided with suitable personal protective equipment (PPE) for their role and exposure levels.
All appointments are assessed and patients only invited to attend a face to face appointment if they cannot be dealt with over the telephone or via video consultation.
All patients are checked for COVID-19 symptoms before attending the Practice and are requested to use hand gel and wear a face covering.
All areas were decluttered at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak and extra cleaning of high touch areas introduced.
All patient facing clinicians wearing PPE for face to face contact with patients.
Additional cleaning schedules were implemented for all areas.
Significant events
There were no significant events relating to Infection Prevention and Control in the previous 12 months.
Audits / Risk Assessments
An annual Infection Control Audit is undertaken in the Practice. This is based on the Department of Health’s Audit Tool (2005). The results from this year’s audit showed compliance in all areas and we are working on areas of learning identified from the audit.
Risk assessments are carried out to ensure that best practice is established and followed. Risk assessments carried out during the year under review included:
- A General Risk Assessment is carried out annually and includes legionella, infection, sharps, cleaning and general housekeeping, waste and hazardous substances risk assessments.
- Risk assessments relating to PPE and Heat Stress, the use of the automatic hand sanitiser dispenser as well as COVID individual risk assessments of all members of staff were conducted during the audit period.
Cleaning specification
The cleaning staff work to structured cleaning schedules and the daily cleaning of the Surgery is contracted to a company who follow national NHS guidance.
Immunisations
All staff are offered Hepatitis B immunisation and other occupational health vaccines relevant to their role ie MMR and seasonal influenza.
Policies, procedures and guidelines
All Infection Control policies are reviewed and updated annually as appropriate. This is on-going and amendments will be made as current advice changes.
