Tuesday, 17 October 2023
- Clean hands prevent and control infection
- International Infection Prevention Week (IIPW) 15 to 21 October
International Infection Prevention Week takes place this week around the world to highlight how we can protect our health through reducing infection. This year’s theme is Celebrating the Fundamentals of Infection Prevention, or simply put, getting back to basics.
Infection prevention and control (IPC) is a vital part of all of our health services and this week, the HSE wants to again highlight the importance of getting back to basics to prevent infection across residential services, community services, hospitals, laboratories and all services.
You can keep yourself, your patients and service users safe by:
- Keeping your hands clean
- Staying home if you are unwell
- Adhering to respiratory and cough etiquette
- Keeping up to date with vaccines, including the annual flu vaccine
- Being aware of how infection prevention and control can protect your families, patients and service users
Dr Eimear Brannigan, HSE National Lead for Antibiotic Resistance, says: “International Infection Prevention Week gives us the opportunity to highlight some of the key actions we can all take to reduce infection. We have all learnt the importance of reducing infection as we lived through the COVID19 pandemic. The frontline of preventing healthcare associated infection is the skill and commitment of health and social care workers who deliver hands on care to the most vulnerable patients and clients in their homes, in residential settings and in hospitals.
“We know that people tend to go back to their old habits when a crisis starts to get better so it is vitally important that we all understand that we need to keep focusing on hand hygiene. We need to get back to basics and I want to encourage people to continue to clean their hands. Having sanitiser and access to hand washing facilities will make it easier for everyone to maintain their good hand hygiene habits.”
Keeping our hands clean, making sure that we cough or sneeze into a tissue or our elbows and staying home if we are unwell all help to stop the spread of infection. One of the most important parts of IPC (infection prevention and control) is making sure that those hands that do the hands-on care are clean hands. It is essential that we all clean our hands thoroughly to reduce the risk of infection spreading. We often think we have washed our hands properly but have a look at this short experiment and you will be surprised.
See hse.ie/handhygiene for more information about good hand hygiene.
Meanwhile, IPC practitioners play a critical role in working with their colleagues to keep our health and social care services safe from the threat of infectious diseases. In May 2023, the National Clinical Guidelines for IPC was published and available at https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/a057e-infection-prevention-and-control-ipc/.
Check out the e-bug website lots of games, fun facts and information on infection control, hand hygiene and lessons for teachers.
Last updated on: 17 / 10 / 2023
