Oxoid Infection Control Team of the Year

Oxoid has presented £5,000 in the 2008/2009 Oxoid Infection Control Team of the Year Awards to the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, England. The Awards entry demonstrated sustained commitment to reducing healthcare associated infections.

Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust (HEFT) is one of the largest trusts in England, with 1500 beds across four sites and demonstrated significant improvements in the quality of care delivered to patients, achieving, in 2008, a 52% reduction in MRSA bacteraemia and 27% in Clostridium difficile infections. These impressive figures were combined with some innovations that impressed the Awards’ judges. The provision of blood culture packs designed to reduce contaminated cultures was one such innovation that, when combined with the provision of training in aseptic technique, has led to significant reductions in contaminated cultures. “This is a simple, but clever, idea that can easily be emulated in other hospitals”, said one of the Awards’ judges, Dr Tim Boswell, Consultant Medical Microbiologist and Infection Control Doctor, Nottingham University Hospital
NHS Trust, and representative of the Hospital Infection Society.

The HEFT infection control team was proactive in its work with IT colleagues to develop an on-line web-based system for root cause analysis of MRSA bacteraemia. Replacing the previous paper trail with this easy-to-use computer system allowed the team to analyse data to identify targeted and effective interventions.

Along with many other improvement measures, a new initiative, whereby ward pharmacists issue notices of non-compliance to clinical staff, has also brought improvements to antibiotic prescribing procedures. “Again this simple technique was one of the many measures, designed and implemented by the team that impressed the judging panel”, commented Fiona Macrae, Oxoid Awards manager and chairman of judges, “we are delighted to award this year’s first prize to the Infection Prevention and Control Team at Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust.”

The 2nd prize was awarded to the team at the St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust, London, England, who had effectively reduced healthcare associated infections through changes of working practices, broader team work with colleagues from other departments, and scrupulous attention to detail. The sustained effort of the St Georges team over a number of years has demonstrated continued reduction in MRSA bacteraemia.

In third place were the Infection Prevention and Control Team at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, Portsmouth, England. The department excelled in their communication of infection prevention and control issues within the hospital and the wider community with a ‘bugbusters’ campaign’ that raised public awareness of the fight against hospital infection.

“The Oxoid Infection Control Team of the Year Awards are open to infection prevention and control teams worldwide” concluded Fiona Macrae, “although we had many entries from UK teams this year, we had fewer overseas entries than in previous years. We are however delighted to make a Judges Special Award to the infection control team at Providence Health Care in Vancouver, Canada, for the work that they have undertaken, not only reducing levels of nosocomial infections, including VRE, which does not commonly feature in Awards entries, but also reducing infections in intravenous drug users and homeless persons in the local community.”

For more information about the winners, or to register for the 2009/2010 Awards, please speak to you local Oxoid representative, or contact Fiona Macrae, tel: +44 (0) 1256 841144, fiona.macrae@thermofisher.com