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Questions for inspectors on infection prevention and control for NHS acute and mental health trusts
During the conversation with your inspector, the focus will be on establishing whether your trust has full assurance on infection prevention and control when providing care for patients and when re-establishing non-COVID services. The discussion prompts will help the inspector to understand whether you need support with anything. Your inspector may not need to cover all the discussion prompts as things may already be clear, so you don’t need to spend time preparing for them.
Discussion prompts:
- If not, is the trust planning to produce an assessment, and when?
- If yes, how did you carry out the assessment?
- Which services did you assess?
- What did you learn?
- How did you assess the environment and estate?
Discussion prompts:
- What is the governance around infection prevention and control (IPC)?
- How do you know that risk assessments are carried out?
- How do you consider the susceptibility of service users?
- How is risk assessed at the front door?
- How do you ensure staff know about national guidance on moving patients, for example, transfer or discharge from hospital?
- How are risk registers used for IPC risks?
Discussion prompts:
- How are different rooms cleaned systematically to the required standard?
- What have you learned from audits?
- Are there specific teams for specific processes?
Discussion prompts:
- What did you learn from antimicrobial or prescribing audits?
- Are there any areas not covered by audits?
- How are antiviral stocks monitored?
Discussion prompts:
- Did you have a communications plan for this? What have you put in place?
- What challenges have you experienced in providing information to service users, visitors, and people concerned with their care?
Discussion prompts:
- How do you identify people who have, or are at risk of, infection, and at what stage?
- Have you evaluated understanding of your protocol to identify and manage these patients?
- How do you minimise the risk of cross-infection?
- How is contact tracing actioned?
Discussion prompts:
- How do you ensure that PPE training is up to date with advice?
- How are bank/agency staff trained?
- How do you audit hand hygiene and use of PPE and what have you learned?
Discussion prompts:
- What facilities do you have for isolation?
- How do you know whether there are enough isolation rooms to meet demand?
- Is there a system for monitoring isolation guidance?
- How do staff know when and how to cohort patients with any infection?
Discussion prompts:
- Is your laboratory support external or in-house, and how do you ensure that this runs smoothly?
- What is the testing capacity, and is there a prompt turnaround of results?
Discussion prompts:
- What are your policies regarding preventing and controlling infections? How do you know whether they are effective?
- Did you develop any new policies in response to COVID-19?
Discussion prompts:
- What is the system for testing the fitness of staff to work?
- What action is taken on results?
- What support is given to staff who are living with mental or physical impacts of COVID-19?
- Last updated:
- 22 June 2020