£500,000-Plus Boost For Infection Prevention Campaign at Redion's Largest Hospital Trust

Reporter: Ask Bury
Date online: 18 December 2007

Infection prevention work at four Greater Manchester hospitals has been given a massive boost thanks to a £550,000 grant from the Department of Health.

And a hand-cleaning blitz has resulted in more than 3,000 doctors, nurses and other staff being given additional training.

Pennine Acute Trust, which runs Bury’s Fairfield General Hospital, North Manchester General Hospital, The Royal Oldham Hospital and Rochdale Infirmary received the funding from a national fund to support hygiene work.

The grant will be used to support a specialist team of five senior nurses, who will work at all of the hospitals, supporting existing infection prevention staff and ward staff.

It will also allow for wider use of ChloraPrep, a sterilising solution used for skin preparation prior to taking blood.
Marian Carroll, the Trust’s director of nursing, said: "This funding is fantastic news, and the team are already on the wards. These nurses will work to support what’s already going on in our wards and departments, where there’s a tremendous amount of effort being made.
"We recently held an infection prevention summit chaired by Professor Brian Duerden, the Inspector of Microbiology and Infection Control for the Department of Health. In the run up to that, we held an action week of special hand hygiene sessions for staff in wards across all of our hospitals. During that time, more than 3,000 staff received that additional training, which is on top of the training and advice already given. That’s an effort which we’ll be keeping up."

Meanwhile, Marian also confirmed that the Trust has applied for funding from a national fund to support deep cleaning work in wards.

She said: "There are a number of different workstreams being undertaken to improve infection prevention. Everyone has their part to play. We want visitors to wards, whether they are staff, relatives or friends, to clean their hands. It is the single most effective step you can take for good infection prevention practice."