Is it an emergency?An IPC Lead/Link person is someone who is passionate and enthusiastic about sharing best practice for infection prevention and control. This role has been developed in many organisations as part of the COVID 19 response and is seen as positive learning from the pandemic to support the broader IPC agenda.
What is an IPC Lead/Link Person?
This is a key role within a GP practice, Hospice, Community nursing team, Care Home, Supported Housing, or Domiciliary Care Setting.It is an additional responsibility taken on by a substantive member of the care team as part of their ‘day job’; as such the member of staff should be allowed protected time to focus on the role within their paid hours of work. It is suggested that this might amount to half a day per week, although this may vary based on the size of the care setting and dependency of the service users.
The IPC Lead/Link persons role presents the opportunity to develop and enhance your knowledge of infection prevention and control, to work at a cross-organisational level, and to learn skills such as in auditing, planning events and displays, and presenting at team meetings.
They may be a member of the care team who has an interest in, and commitment to promoting excellent standards of infection prevention and control in their workplace, for example, a nurse, allied health professional, health care assistant, support worker or manager. They should possess excellent interpersonal skills, the capacity to motivate and encourage their colleagues to follow good practice, and the ability to challenge inappropriate practice in an assertive yet sensitive manner.
- Facilitates two-way communication between the care setting and the IPC Team to provide advice, support and training in infection prevention and control to care settings.
- Identifies and escalates to their manager any increase in numbers of infections or linked infections in their care setting, which may indicate a possible outbreak of infection.
- Assists the IPC Team to set up visits or training events at their care setting.
- Identifies training gaps, feeds these back to the IPC Team so that required training programmes can be developed.
- Displays posters and leaflets to advise staff, service users and their relatives on aspects of infection prevention and control, for example a display to promote flu vaccination.
- Conducts audits, for example on hand hygiene or use of PPE (as guided by the IPC Team or the manager), feeding results back to manager and staff, as well as the IPC Team who can support any remedial follow up actions.
- Provides updates at staff meetings on IPC issues at the care setting, as well as on new local or national guidance of which their team needs to be aware.
- Attends any meetings of IPC Cleads/Link persons across their neighbourhood – in person or online – for professional networking and to share ideas and good practice.
- The manager will need to support their IPC Champion in their role by:
- As far as possible, allowing them protected time and resources (such as the use of a computer for online meetings) to fulfil their responsibilities.
- Meeting with them regularly to discuss any issues arising and being open to address any need for change in practice at the care setting.
- Allowing them a regular slot at team meetings to provide an IPC update.