Infection prevention and control
Ramsay has a very low rate of hospital acquired infection and
has had no reported MRSA Bacteraemia in the past three years.
We comply with mandatory reporting of all Alert organisms
including MRSA Bacteraemia and Clostridium Difficile infections
with a programme to reduce incidents year on year.
Ramsay participates in mandatory surveillance of surgical site
infections for orthopaedic joint surgery and these are also
monitored.
Infection Prevention and Control management is very active in
Ramsay. An annual strategy is developed by a high level Infection
Prevention and Control (IPC) Committee and group policy is revised
and re-deployed every two years. Our IPC programmes are designed to
bring about improvements in performance and in practice year on
year.
A network of specialist nurses and infection control link nurses
operate across the Ramsay organisation to support good clinical
practice.
Programmes and activities within Ramsay include:
- Deployment of standard operating procedures, such as hygiene
and cleaning procedures, antibiotic prescribing, patient screening
protocols (covering medical history and laboratory testing)
- Reporting includes Surgical Site Infection surveillance and
Hospital Acquired Infection data reporting to the Health protection
Agency
- Auditing tracks not only practice compliance as set out in
policy / procedures but also tracks risk associated with hand
hygiene, peripheral and central venous line / infusions
- Education of staff operates on a number of different levels –
foundation courses for clinical and nonclinical staff, for new
starters, as refresher training, as advanced training. Trainers are
NHS professionals - specialists practising at consultant level
- Patient education is developed in parallel to promote
good patient hygiene and to improve understanding of hospital
acquired infection. This includes leaflets and website
information
- Patients are invited to comment through patient experience
surveys and state perception of standards of cleanliness and staff
hygiene behaviours
- Ramsay have deployed the PEAT tool to monitor
environmental standards and use the NPSA website to trend
performance / identify areas for improvement
Further information
Cleanliness
Download our quality report
We aim to provide the highest standards in all aspects of
patient care for both private and NHS patients. One important
indicator is that our hospitals and treatment centres have had
no reported cases of MRSA bacteremia in the
past 3 years, to find out more please
download our 2009 / 10 Quality Account.