Nursing homes infection control audit.

Abstract

Objectives: To carry out a telephone audit looking at the number of nursing homes adhering to the recommendations that nursing homes should-. have a trained infection control link nurse have appropriate reference material respond appropriately to enteric outbreaks record residents with previously identified MRSA and C. diff. be aware of clients with possible infections offer influenza vaccination to all residents.

Design: An initial telephone survey of all 23 nursing homes within Forth Valley Health Board area in February 2000 was followed by offering a training programme and repeating the survey in December 2000 to find out if improvements had been made.

Results: In February 2000 there were 17(74%) nursing homes with link nurses. In December 2000 this was 19(83%). The numbers who had attended a PHICN induction course were low (11% vs 16%). The lack of availability of reference material in a number of homes gave cause for concern. About one third of nursing homes had residents with diarrhoea and vomiting in the last three months and had called the GP. In February none and in December one of the respondents said that Public Health had been informed. The number of homes which took specimens was 33% in February vs 88% in December and with carriers of MRSA was 75% vs 83%. Those flagging notes increased from 73% to 100%. The number with residents with C.diff was extremely small (1vs2) and all notes were reported to be flagged.

Conclusion: Staff retention and training were highlighted as areas to be addressed. Improvements in availability of reference material in nursing homes, standardisation of "flagging" or marking of notes and increased notification of possible outbreaks to the Communicable Disease Team are required.