Analysis of NSW Infection Prevention and Control Policy in Nursing

This report delves into the critical domain of professional issues and policies within nursing, with a specific emphasis on infection prevention and control. The analysis centers on the NSW Infection Prevention and Control Policy, evaluating its implementation, oversight, and impact on nursing practic...Read More

Professional issues and policies in nursing and specialisation
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Professional issues and policies in nursing and specialisation
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
NSW Infection Prevention and Control Policy: An oversight and Implementation.......................2
The Risk Of Healthcare-Associated Infections...............................................................................3
The burden of healthcare Associated Infection in NSW Hospitals................................................4
Recommendations of Policy and impact on nursing practices........................................................5
Review: Strength and Weakness.....................................................................................................7
Efforts to prevent infection in Tasmania State and Comparison with NSW Policy........................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Every healthcare system works based on some identified procedures and practices.
Healthcare policies refer to plans and procedures developed to achieve healthcare goals in a
society (Who.int, 2019). Healthcare policies play an important role in nursing as it defines
healthcare goals and manner to achieve those goals. In the best interest of public health, the
government of different nation develops certain health policies that address different issues. In
the development of these policies healthcare professionals and nurses’ plays, a significant role
and later on these policies also influence nursing practices. For the preparation of this
assignment, one of such policy is selected that is Infection Prevention and Control Policy
developed by the government of New South Wales stets of Australia. The lead purpose of the
report is to check the impact of the selected policy on the healthcare system of the relevant area.
Further, a similar policy of another state named Tasmania will be also be discussed and
compared with the selected policy. Lastly, conclusions, summarizing the main findings of the
report will be drawn upon.
NSW Infection Prevention and Control Policy: An oversight and
Implementation
As the name of the policy implies, the same has been developed to guide health
organizations of the state (NSW) about the prevention, management, and control of healthcare-
associated infection (hereinafter referred as HAIs). The policy developed many of the provisions

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in respect to HAIs such as development of Infection prevention and control committees, risk
mitigation requirements, Provisions related to Patient and visitor hand hygiene and so on. In such
a way, the selected policy prescribes a manner in which healthcare professionals must deal with
daily hygiene and should perform their duties. The guideline came along with a standard manner
of working and is expected to eliminate all the confusion of healthcare workers that they have in
respect to the standard way of using gloves, mask, syringe, and other objects. The policy has
been issued in June 2017 and is currently active in the NSW state of Australia. Different
organizations and workgroups are there to implement this Policy. For instances, Health education
and training institute provide educational resources that support the implementation of this
policy, Infection prevention and control professionals are there for review and reporting of the
same and health workers are people responsible to implement this policy in actual (Intranet,
2017).
The Risk Of Healthcare-Associated Infections
Theoretically, any microorganism may give rise to healthcare-associated infection. In a
healthcare system, a various group of people such as visitors, health workers, patients, and carers
always remain on the risk of attaining HAI. Not only hospitals are in question but also people
who get their treatment in home-based or community-based setting also remain at risk. Often
HAI increases risk of mortality for patients and increases burdens for carers and families of the
patient. A patient that come across HAI are more likely to stay in the hospital for long, require a
broader spectrum and place a great burden on the health care system. Implementation of a proper

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infection prevention system is likely to reduce the volume of infection and to provide better
healthcare outcomes to patients and families.
The burden of healthcare Associated Infection in NSW Hospitals
In order to discuss the status of HIA in Australia, this is to state that the situation is
serious. As per an estimation made by Cruickshank and Ferguson in 2008, around 2 lakh HAI are
used to develop in Australia each year and is likely to be the most common complication that
affects patients in the hospital. As per one of a study conducted in this area, the incident of
acquisition of Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia by the hospital has been measured as 0.77 per
10,000 bed days in NSW hospitals (Mitchell, Shaban, MacBeth, Wood, & Russo, 2017). NSW is
the largest state of Australia and population of the same was 7.25 million as per the census of
2001. The study of infection considered necessary for this state. Under another study, a
correlation matrix has been developed which shown that higher SAB rates are associated with
lower hand hygiene rates and higher accreditation scores. Further, this study presented rate of S.
aureus bacteraemia for different peer groups and the highest rate was 1.52 per 10000 bed days
that was associated with peer group A. Group A represented specialist teaching hospitals and
principal referral hospitals (Mumford, Reeve, Greenfield, Forde, Westbrook, & Braithwaite,
2015).
It is clear by the above-mentioned discussion that risk of S. aureus bacteraemia found in
the hospitals of NSW. Nevertheless, this was just a single type of infection. Risk of other
infections also found in NSW hospitals. In one of the studies conducted in the area, a number of

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Urinary tract infection found 2821 per 62,503 patient admissions. The study conducted to all the
hospitals of state (Mitchell, Ferguson, Anderson, Sear, & Barnett, 2016).
Recommendations of Policy and impact on nursing practices
An infection prevention and control policy plays an important role in nursing practice as
the same spread awareness among nurses and other healthcare professionals and enables them to
make a balance of their own clinical area and infection control team (Dekker, Jongerden, van
Mansfeld, Ket, van der Werff, Vandenbroucke-Grauls, & de Bruijne, 2019). The policy
developed by the NSW government in order to prevent infection seems to be a significant step
taken by the same. By the study of above-mentioned data, it is clear that a number of infection
was high in Australia and therefore the need for infection prevention policy felt. The lead
objective of such infection prevention and control program is to reduce rates of preventable
healthcare-associated infection (Gilbert, & Kerridge, 2019). The selected policy will have a
significant impact on NSW nursing practices. To comply with these guidelines, nurses, as well as
healthcare professionals, will change their routine practices and use of objects. For instance, now
nurses and doctors are required to wear protective eyewear during the performance of any task
that associate risk of splattering or splashing body substances (Health, 2017). Similarly, the
policy also included provisions related to the use of gowns and aprons. Prior to this policy,
nurses were using gowns and aprons at some of the incidents only where they were finding the
same appropriate. Now, after the development and implementation of the selected policy, they
are required to wear these objects at every mentioned incident in the policy.

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The subjective policy does not only affect nursing practices in the context of wearing
safety instruments but also in relation to the disposal of sharps. Before the introduction of the
policy, nurses and healthcare professional of NSW hospitals were using different practices.
Bloodborne viruses always been an issue in NSW hospitals and caused infection among patients.
Further, the risk of infection out of this virus is always high when medical devices such as
scalpels, needles, and other sharp instruments are contaminated with body substance. Now by the
virtue of this policy, it is necessary for every public health organization to provide training on
handling and disposal of sharps to health workers.
Hand Hygiene is equally important to reduce infection. World Health Organization
produces five moments for hand hygiene (Mehta, Gupta, Todi, Myatra, Samaddar, Patil,
Bhattacharya & Ramasubban, 2014). In NSW hospitals too, such measures related to hand
hygiene were important to implement. The selected policy fulfills this purpose. The policy makes
it mandatory for nurses and healthcare workers to wash visibly soiled hands with running water
and liquid soap. It means that irrespective of the type and size of the hospital, nurses have to
follow these instructions. Further, public health organizations are now liable to ensure that
alcohol-based hand rub is at nearest to point of care. Australian health facility guidelines were
there to guide on hand hygiene but this policy makes it compulsory for the organizations. Hand
hygiene and use of personal protective equipment are part of risk mitigation. Some other ways
are also there in which this policy affects nursing practices in the NSW state of Australia and is
trying to bring positive impacts changes through these changed practices.
An audit became mandatory of central and satellite reprocessing units to ensure that a
proper governance structure is there in public health organizations. Now, no public health
organization (PHO) may reuse the single-use devices as its increases of infection. This provision

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brought a significant change in nursing practice, as some of the equipment cannot be reused by
PHO. In conjunction with this, now PHO is required to seek local infection prevention and
control advice before purchasing new devices or equipment. The policy prescribes that animal
patient may affect human patient and therefore PHO is required to develop a proper system to
ensure that human patients are not getting affected by any infection because of the visit of animal
patients. Prior to this policy, HW was required to take certain precautions under Australian
health standard but this policy made the same mandatory.
Review: Strength and Weakness
In order to review the strength and weakness of the policy, this is to state that the very
first positive aspect of the selected policy is that the same is written in a very basic and easy to
understand language. Further one may find key definitions of all the critical vocabulary used in
the same. The policy contains various links in itself such as web links of various legislative
requirement, guidelines, and organizations like the Dental Board of Australia. This is to state that
it covers almost every area where infection can be found and make the requirements mandatory
for health workers rather than optional. Further, the policy does not make any conflict with any
other legislation as it is required to read alongside existing legislation of this area.
Nevertheless, this would be wrong to state that the selected policy does not have any
limitation or weakness. The very first limitation is that being a state policy it is only applicable to
the organization of NSW. The second weakness of the policy is that it is more theoretical in
nature and one may find difficulty in reading such a long text. In conjunction with this, the

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policy does not prescribe anything in relation to non-acute settings specifically whereas the
number and volume of infection in the rural area seems to be high in comparison to other areas.
Efforts to prevent infection in Tasmania State and Comparison with NSW
Policy
Similar to NSW, infection issue presents in all other states of Australia and therefore
governments of different states make infection prevention policies. For, instance, Tasmania State
of Australia also developed certain guiltiness on infection prevention and control. The
guidelines influence nursing practices in Tasmania State as it makes many of the activities
mandatory for health workers. The state develops web links and resources for those healthcare
providers who serve in rural hospitals or other non-acute settings (Dhhs, 2019). In comparison to
the NSW state, Tasmania government does not provide a combined document that includes all
the provisions. However, the same as the NSW government, Tasmania government also
developed provisions on hand hygiene, healthcare worker education, environmental cleaning
assessment program, and so on. In order to compare both of these policies, this is to state that
NSW policy carries more provisions in compare to Tasmania Policy.
Further, Tasmania government has developed different documents for different aspects
such as guidelines to open fluorescent gel marker, Hand Hygiene Program in Statewide and
Mental Health Services and so on whereas in NSW number of different reports are documents
are lesser. This is one of the greatest weaknesses in the context of Tasmania provisions. But in
Tasmania, provisions related to the rural area are also mentioned in a separate document that was
missing in case of NSW. Hence, to conclude NSW policy is easy to understand and follow in

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comparison to provisions developed by the department of health and human services of
Tasmania but somewhere consist of fewer provisions.
Conclusion
In a conclusive way, this is to state that in Australia infection level in hospitals has found
high and therefore different states have developed policies to prevent and control infection. In
this report, various infections have been studied to be there in NSW hospitals and to control such
issues, a policy was required there. NSW policy on this topic has significance influence on
nursing practices as it makes many activities mandatory to do for health workers and public
health organizations such as one-time use of particular substances, use of gloves and eyes
protection measures and so on. In conjunction with this, infection prevention and control
guidelines of Tasmania states have also been discussed and a little comparison has been made
between provisions developed by NSW and Tasmania states.

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References
Dekker, M., Jongerden, I. P., van Mansfeld, R., Ket, J. C., van der Werff, S. D., Vandenbroucke-
Grauls, C. M., & de Bruijne, M. C. (2019). Infection control link nurses in acute care
hospitals: a scoping review. Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control, 8(1), 20.
Dhhs (2019). Infection Control Monitoring for Non-Acute Settings. Retrieved
From:https://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/publichealth/tasmanian_infection_prevention_and_co
ntrol_unit/infection_control_assessment_non-acute_settings
Gilbert, G. L., & Kerridge, I. (2019). The politics and ethics of hospital infection prevention and
control: a qualitative case study of senior clinicians’ perceptions of professional and
cultural factors that influence doctors’ attitudes and practices in a large Australian
hospital. BMC health services research, 19(1), 212.
Gilbert, G. L., & Kerridge, I. (2019). The politics and ethics of hospital infection prevention and
control: a qualitative case study of senior clinicians’ perceptions of professional and
cultural factors that influence doctors’ attitudes and practices in a large Australian
hospital. BMC health services research, 19(1), 212.
Health. (2017) Infection Prevention and Control Policy. Retrieved From:
https://www1.health.nsw.gov.au/pds/ActivePDSDocuments/PD2017_013.pdf

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Intranet. (2017). Infection Prevention and Control Policy. Retrieved From:
https://intranet.nnswlhd.health.nsw.gov.au/docs/PD2017_013-infection-prevention-and-
control-policy-v-001.pdf
Mehta, Y., Gupta, A., Todi, S., Myatra, S. N., Samaddar, D. P., Patil, V., ... & Ramasubban, S.
(2014). Guidelines for prevention of hospital acquired infections. Indian journal of
critical care medicine: peer-reviewed, official publication of Indian Society of Critical
Care Medicine, 18(3), 149.
Mitchell, B. G., Ferguson, J. K., Anderson, M., Sear, J., & Barnett, A. (2016). Length of stay and
mortality associated with healthcare-associated urinary tract infections: a multi-state
model. Journal of Hospital Infection, 93(1), 92-99.
Mitchell, B. G., Shaban, R. Z., MacBeth, D., Wood, C. J., & Russo, P. L. (2017). The burden of
healthcare-associated infection in Australian hospitals: a systematic review of the
literature. Infection, Disease & Health, 22(3), 117-128.
Mumford, V., Reeve, R., Greenfield, D., Forde, K., Westbrook, J., & Braithwaite, J. (2015). Is
accreditation linked to hospital infection rates? A 4-year, data linkage study of
Staphylococcus aureus rates and accreditation scores in 77 Australian acute
hospitals. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 27(6), 479-485.
Who.int. (2019) Health policy. Retrieved From: https://www.who.int/topics/health_policy/en/