Improvement Foundation celebration of success event, held at Hardwick Hall

16th July 2009

MRSA Action UK were delighted to join colleagues who had taken part in the Improvement Foundation's programme and had seen real measurable improvement to the way they had implemented changes and raised awareness of the importance of tackling healthcare associated infections in care homes. Speakers gave highlights of the shared learning and good practice that had developed since the programme began last year.

All those who had taken part knew how to identify those at risk from contracting an infection, what to look out for and what to do. They had taken part in innovative ways to encourage hand hygiene amongst residents, visitors and to spread the word about the importance of hand hygiene. New cleaning regimes had been launched with innovative ways of monitoring, there were improvements in the use of care plans both in terms of admittance to hospital and discharge planning. The use of high risk antibiotics which can cause C.diff had reduced. All this was as a direct result of the actions of staff in the care homes and what they had taken away with them from their shared learning and development of good practice.

The event gave the opportunity to look back on what had been learned with colleagues from care homes across the North Tees region, the joined up working with the Primary and Acute Trusts and to look forward to continuing the actions and developing good practice further. The measurement of success will continue to drive improvement and we look forward to seeing this success being shared within other Strategic Health Authorities. The Improvement Foundation are developing a core learning programme to help care providers meet the standards in the Hygiene Code and achieve full compliance in order to register with the Care Quality Commission, this is a natural progression from this programme and all those who have taken part will be well on the way to achieving even more success.

Derek Butler

Chair

MRSA Action UK