Infection Prevention and Control Community of Practice

Preventing and controlling infection is a fundamental component of good care, essential to patient, visitor and staff safety and wellbeing.

"Infection prevention and control is more than dealing with C.diff and MRSA - it is a core element of practice, intrinsic to high quality patient care."
Rick Catlin, Assistant Director of Infection Prevention and Control, Bolton NHS Foundation Trust

In June 2016 we decided to change the title of the group from an ‘Interest Group’ to a ‘Community of Practice‘ (CoP). In principle there is no change to the essence of the group's purpose but the concept of a ‘Community of Practice' as defined by Wenger (1998) better reflects the members' intentions and aspirations of why we meet and how we can support one another. Download more information about what a community of practice is.

The need

Delivering infection prevention and control (IPC) can be challenging – keeping up to speed with latest research, policies and EU directives and how they impact on the hospice environment.

We want to engage with the leaders on infection control in our member organisations to support you in your role where we can.

The group's four key priorities are:

• providing training and updates on topical and relevant IPC issues
• providing support and advice to IPC leads
• building a hospice IPC community by offering peer learning and advice.

Join the Infection, Prevention and Control Community of Practice to receive updates on webinars, a bi-monthly bulletin and key communications. 

Meetings

We are also pleased to provide bi-monthly ECHO™ webinars in which we offer an 'all-learn', 'all-teach' approach to best practice. Our next ECHO sessions for 2022 will soon be confirmed.

Contact the ECHO team to find out more, sign up and access resources. 

Every Action Counts review

We have been delighted with your contribution to a review of NHS England 'Every Action Counts' videos and toolkits, to make these important resources work for hospices.

The tools are now ready to support excellence in audit standard IPC behaviours for your hospice.

Checklist and monitoring tool for the management of Covid-19
Vulnerability tool for hospices







Video resources are also available:

Because I Care video







Hierarchy of Controls video

Your Infection, Prevention and Control bi-monthly bulletin

We are delighted to offer a bulletin on all things Infection, Prevention and Control, supporting your Community of Practice with updates on policy, guidance, events, research and more.

Take a look at our most recent bulletin

Sign up to your Network to receive future bulletins

Meet the team  

Julia Russell

Julia Russell, Senior Clinical and Quality Improvement Lead, Clinical, Hospice UK, leads the Network and facilitates meetings and webinars.

Stuart Duncan

The administrator for this group, Stuart arranges meetings and disseminates information. He works for Hospice UK as the Clinical Team Administrator.

Get involved

We have over 160 infection control leads in our Network. Contact us if you would like to be included in our mailing or you have any questions relating to infection prevention and control.

Coronavirus (Covid 19)

We are providing the following links for information:
The government response on the GOV.UK website
The Public Heath England advice on the GOV.UK website
The latest NHS England Tripartite letters
The advice on the Health Protection Scotland website
Guidance on the Northern Ireland HSC Public Health Agency website