Practical Infection Control
Are you doing everything you can in your clinic to promote hygiene and maintain infection control standards? Maybe you feel like your protocols need review, but you’re not quite sure where to start?
It’s so important that everyone in the clinic knows what they should be doing – when, how where and why. Also, if you’re in the UK, how do you ensure you meet the new guidelines in the RCVS Practice Standards Scheme? What about those high-risk infectious cases? What would you do if a patient contracted MRSA?
Infection control is a vitally important aspect of veterinary practice life, and this course will offer an overview of the many elements of infection control – from basic practice hygiene to clinical considerations. The flexibility of the course will also allow each candidate to address their own unique practice situation and focus in more depth on an area that is of importance to them.
We will also look at the concept of infection control practitioners or groups, and how a dedicated ‘Infection Control Champion’ can can help to enhance the creation and implementation of SOPs, achieve team adherence, and enable monitoring of efficacy of the protocols.
From your study on the course, you will develop your own SOP in an area of your choice, to help make infection control work for you in your individual place of work, and will receive feedback on your SOP from your tutor.
Topics covered in this course include:
Current challenges in infection control
- Looking at individual and practice challenges
- Identifying most urgent practice needs in infection prevention
- Guidance and direction on creating an SOP
Cleaning and disinfection
- From the waiting room to theatre – the fundamentals of basic cleaning and practice organisation
- Common ‘danger’ zones in the practice
- Selection of cleaning and disinfection products
- Do ‘cleaning bombs’ work?
- Use of disinfectants – dilution rates, contact time, chemistry rotation and safety
- Selection of different disinfectants for different situations
- Cleaning and disinfecting veterinary and patient equipment
- Appropriate selection and use of cleaning equipment/tools
- Use of colour-coding for equipment
- Consulting room considerations
Hand hygiene
- The five moments of hand hygiene
- Hand washing techniques
- Hand hygiene products and equipment
- Scrub versus rub
- Ensuring/checking efficacy of hand hygiene
- Sanitiser stations
- Which glove for which task?
- Hand care to prevent skin damage
- Managing client hand hygiene
Barrier nursing
- Biosecurity and creating a tiered biosecurity system
- Best practices in barrier nursing
- Managing isolation facilities
- Making the best of the facilities you have in your practice
- Particular cases, such as Parvovirus and MRSA
- Reverse barrier nursing
- Creating a ‘barrier nursing pack’ fee
Correct use of personal protective equipment (PPE)
- The variety of PPE available
- To re-use or single use?
- How to don and remove PPE effectively
- Adhering to H+S and COSHH guidelines
- Protecting staff and patients for ‘dirty’ procedures
- Consulting room attire and PPE
- Care of the veterinary team
Theatre
- Managing the ops list to promote infection prevention
- Infection control in-between patients
- Moving from prep room to theatre – patients and equipment
- Daily and deep cleaning of theatre
- Specialised theatre wall coverings
- Cleaning theatre equipment
- Theatre attire and staff compliance
- Theatre ‘etiquette’ and behaviour
- Best practices in patient preparation
- Draping the patient
- Surgical equipment management
- Post operative measures for infection and SSI prevention
Laundry
- Correct procedures for patient bedding
- Washing contaminated items
- Staff uniforms
- Special equipment for laundry
Implementation, compliance and monitoring
- Creating a team approach to infection control
- Education of all staff
- Infection control as part of the induction process
- Inter-staff training
- Surveys and questionnaires
- Constructing and using checklists
- Promoting and monitoring adherence to protocols
- Efficacy versus time – finding the balance
- Performing an audit on infection control
- Looking at results of C&S testing, swabbing of surfaces, ATP testing
- Protocols when ‘sharing’ your practice with an OOH team
- Client education
Course content covered will be dictated by the needs of the participants on the course, so you are able to raise any topics related to infection control that are relevant to you and your practice and team.
Course resources include:
- Access to our flexible online learning environment for the duration of the course
- Lecture/s that can be viewed at any time, and as many times as you like
- Interactive, tutor-guided learning forums
- Supporting materials, tools and ideas for assisting with and supporting your learning
- Assessed coursework with constructive feedback from your tutor
- Practical documents created by you, tailored to the needs of your practice
- Access to the course materials for a period after the course
Course duration: 3 weeks (8 hours flexible/self-directed study time in total)
Course type: Fully supported interactive online
Tutor: Emma Gerrard
Suitable for: Vets, vet nurses, students. Those in a leadership position in practice looking to update infection control protocols would also benefit from this course.
This course is accredited by AMTRA for 32 SQP CPD points.
Please advise at registration if you require these points.
