Best practice guidelines for IPC

As seen in the previous step, guidelines for infection prevention and control are vital to reduce infection rates in many settings. This particular step will look into infection prevention and control in a more general healthcare situation.

General IPC guidelines are as follows:

• Hand hygiene

  • Washing of staff hands between patients and other tasks

  • Washing of hands before and after eating/touching food

  • Washing of hands after using the bathroom

  • Washing of hands after sneezing or coughing

• Wearing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE)

• Cleaning of surfaces regularly

• Never re-using syringes or needles to prevent cross-patient contamination

• Cleaning/changing catheters regularly to prevent infections

• Only prescribing antibiotics when absolutely necessary, and informing patients to complete the course of antibiotics

These guidelines are used in many healthcare settings. Many of these guidelines target particular routes of transmission of microbes to prevent entry into the body such as direct contact, oral ingestion and entry via blood. Preventing and reducing entry of microbes into the body is vastly important in reducing infections.

The UK government provides an overview of IPC guidelines here.