Recruitment and Career Blog -

Health Care Tips: Good Hand-washing Practice for Infection Control

2020-03-27

It is important to understand why we should take extra care to control the spread of any viruses or infections using good hand washing practices. Hand washing is one of the best methods to prevent the spread of germs and keep yourself and your family protected as well as healthy. According to the CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention), "handwashing can reduce the risk of respiratory infections by 16%" Think of it like this: if your hands are clean, you can save your life and others by stopping the spread of germs. Here is why good hygiene matters and what happens if infection or viruses spread fast: People can suffer and die, especially those using health and care services are usually more vulnerable and need protecting Infection is more likely to spread when vulnerable people are together Infection cost health care services huge amounts of money Infection can spread quickly affecting whole populations right across the world It can impact on people’s social and family life New diseases develop and old diseases reappear – infection never goes away Inadequate hand hygiene means a healthcare-associated infection which can result in patient death! In order to prevent or reduce the spread of infectious diseases and viruses, the “Chain of infection” must be broken. This can be done by appropriate cleaning and hand washing. Especially for healthcare workers such as nurses and healthcare assistants because they work in hospitals and take care of vulnerable people, it is crucial to maintain excellent hygiene levels. To protect yourself and others from germs: Wash your hands regularly with soap and water and dry them thoroughly If soap is not available, use an alcohol-based sanitiser but be aware that it does not kill all germs, whereas soap and water kill most germs. Unfortunately, studies have found hand washing compliance to be greater than 50% This is due to the lack of appropriate handwashing facilities, or complete ignorance. To become aware of the good handwashing practices, hospitals and care units should provide appropriate training to their staff. Good Handwashing Practices (Step-by-Step): These guidelines are given by the CDC, a government organization for disease control and prevention, please follow this to stay healthy: Wet your hands with clean, running water (warm or cold), turn off the tap, and apply soap. Lather your hands by rubbing them together with the soap. Lather the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails. Scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds. Need a timer? Hum the “Happy Birthday” song from beginning to end twice. Rinse your hands well under clean, running water. Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry them. Here is a handwashing technique poster from WHO (World Health Organisation) to help you understand how to wash your hands properly: Source: https://www.who.int/gpsc/clean_hands_protection/en/ When should you wash your hands? Here are some of the times when it is essential before and after work to wash your hands and the steps involved to ensure good hand washing practice: Using disposable gloves: Before you wash hands, here is how to take off your gloves properly in a step by step manner: Pinch the lower palm of one contaminated glove with the gloved fingers of your other hand, and pull it toward your fingertips so that it rolls off your hand with the inside facing outward. Do not remove it completely, though. Now, pinch the lower palm of the other glove with the fingers of the partially-gloved hand, and pull it off completely by pulling it upward and inside-out. Do not dispose of this glove yet---hold it with the fingertips of your partially gloved hand. Then, insert the thumb and forefinger of your bare hand between your wrist and the inside-out cuff of the partially-removed glove. Use caution to avoid touching the outside of the contaminated glove with your bare fingers. Pull the glove toward your fingertips and then over the other contaminated glove. Dispose of the gloves in a marked infectious waste container. Wash your hands immediately with soap and hot water. Preparing, serving and eating food: Make sure to wash hands before, during and after preparing food. Also, wash hands before eating food. If you are serving food or caring for someone who is sick or has a virus or infection, then wash your hands before and after you serve food to them. Contact with your own and other body fluids: This involves all these tasks which means you should wash hands before and after doing these tasks. This list is not an exhaustive list but starting with these can help prevent the spread of germs: Handling clean and dirty laundry Using the toilet Blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing Touching an animal, feeding them or handling their waste Touching garbage, taking bins out Treating a cut or wound Changing a child’s nappy Follow the above-mentioned guidelines properly to stop picking and spreading viruses and infections, especially if you are visiting anyone in the hospital or you work in a healthcare setting.

Social Care: CQC Inspection Checklist [Infographic Inside]

2020-03-16

Are you adult social care services that are providing regulated activities under the Health and Social Care Act 2008? Then, you must be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Who is the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and what do they do? The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulates against the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010 and the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009. These regulations describe the essential standards of quality and safety for people who use health and social care services and these people have a right to expect these standards. Who uses care home services? A care home provides residential care for many people. These include older people, disabled people, people with a learning disability, people with long- or short-term health conditions or people with drug or alcohol problems. A care home may also provide services such as nursing care. What does a CQC inspection involve? According to Care Quality Commission (CQC), "Our job is to monitor and inspect health and adult social care services such as your local care homes, GP practices, and hospitals. We inspect these services to make sure they give you high-quality care and we give them a rating of ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’. If a service needs to improve, we will take action to make sure this happens. When we inspect each service, we always find out whether or not it is: safe, responsive to people’s needs, effective, well-led and caring." An unexpected inspection from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) can be a daunting experience for a care home. To ensure that the visit goes as smoothly and well as possible, you need to set aside time to prepare for what will actually happen when the day arrives. If you follow our handy checklist of 5 top tips to preparing for a CQC inspection, you’ll be ready on the day of the CQC inspection. DOWNLOAD FREE PRINTABLE INFOGRAPHIC [PDF] CQC Inspection Checklist 1 – Prepare your staff: A huge part of meeting the inspector’s requirements and impressing them will be to prepare your staff. The best way to do this is to explain what the CQC inspection is. According to the Care Quality Commission (CQC), "The focus of our inspections is the experiences people have when they receive care and the impact the care has on their health and wellbeing. We make our judgements against the regulations, and the judgements we make are informed by these experiences. This is why inspectors spend a lot of their time on an inspection directly observing care and talking to people who receive care, their family and carers. They will check their findings in a number of ways, perhaps by looking at records, or speaking with staff, to reach their judgements." It is your job to explain to your staff why the inspection is so important for your care home. Make an effort to teach your staff how to communicate with each other and with the residents. The staff needs to be empathetic and respectful to the care home residents. Since learning communication skills takes a long time, start preparing after the day of your last inspection. Your staff does not need to learn all the complex regulations but they should have some understanding of some key regulations such as safeguarding and whistleblowing. This will come in handy when they will be asked questions about regulations and they can then confidently give a simple explanation. It is a good idea to help your staff prepare for CQC interview questions. This will help them to feel more confident and less likely to feel under pressure and on the spot. Here are some of the CQC interview questions that might be asked: How long have you been working here? What it is that you do here? How did you apply for your job? Do you have an updated job description / clear role responsibility, contract and staff handbook? Name one good thing you like about your work? Do you have any concerns? Do you feel supported? How are you treated by management and partnership? Did you have an interview when you applied for this job? Were references taken when you were appointed? Did you have a CRB / DBS check for the current position? Have you received training? What courses/training have you been on? Do you have staff appraisals? When was your last staff appraisal? How did you follow up on the objectives and action plan set out in your appraisal? Are you included in adding to the agenda and receiving meeting minutes? Where are the anaphylactic kits and are they checked regularly? Do you know about vulnerable adults and children? Who is the safeguarding lead here? What are the ‘out of hours’ arrangements? Are you aware of a whistleblowing policy? Do you feel free to blow the whistle if and when necessary? Do you know about the complaints procedure and can you describe it? How do you react when you read NHS choices if there is a complaint? Was there any significant event that you know about? Confidentiality and privacy – how do they work when dealing with patients/service users/clients? How do you treat people with dignity and respect? Describe the chaperone policy and procedure for chaperones? Are you a chaperone? If yes, describe your role and responsibilities? How are areas kept clean and tidy and do you have any concern about the cleanliness of any areas? Do you have an incident and accident book and where is it kept? 2 – Personalise your care plans Your patients are the biggest assets of your organisation. The CQC inspector will want to speak with them to get their views on the organisation and how it is run. You want the patients to give their honest opinion so instead of preparing them in regards to the answers they are going to give, make sure your care plans reflect the actual needs of your patients. Make an effort to create personalised care plans. For example, if one of your residents suffers from high blood pressure, make sure you have a short term care plan in place for immediate care. Image Source: Flickr.com Patient feedback is essential in a social care setting. You should aim to provide the best care possible so you need to know what is working for your patients and what can be improved. It is important that you conduct feedback surveys to address the issues even before the inspection happens. CQC would see that you have thought about your patients' needs and made improvements in your care plans after the survey, based on your residents' feedback. 3 – Plan the day in advance Make a timetable for the day of the inspection so you and your staff know exactly what to do and when. You could also prepare a welcome pack that outlines the key members of staff that the inspector(s) may wish to speak to. This could include the staff member’s name, their job title and a picture of them. Ensure that you have checked if you are breaching any CQC regulations. If yes, create a correction plan quickly and improve your shortcomings. 4 – Gather all the correct and relevant information There could be a vast amount of paperwork and documentation that the CQC inspector could ask for. This could include; policies, HR records, patient information, and health and safety documents. Remember to include minutes of meetings where these topics may have been discussed. Here are a couple of things that CQC wants you to consider: Making staff aware of the methods CQC use to gather evidence. Making it clear that CQC doesn’t expect all staff to have the same level of knowledge and understanding. How you will be ready to produce documentation during the visit. If there is a valid reason why you can’t locate documents during the visit, the CQC inspector will usually allow you 48 hours to produce them. Including a contents page at the front of each care plan so that inspectors and your staff know what they can expect to find and where. Maintaining a folder that directs staff to where they can find information quickly, e.g. health and safety and training records. Keeping your records up to date, particularly training records Checking with the inspector before they leave that they have been provided with all the documents they have asked for, and spoken to everyone they needed to. DOWNLOAD FREE PRINTABLE INFOGRAPHIC [PDF] 5 – Don’t overthink it The CQC inspector will just want to see how the organisation operates on a day to day basis. Just remember to remain calm. If you will follow our CQC inspection checklist, then you will confidently face the CQC inspector as you will be prepared for your CQC inspection. Are you looking to hire staff for your social care setting? Please fill in the form given below and we will be in touch soon. Form ID:5382 CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO DOWNLOAD FREE PRINTABLE INFOGRAPHIC [PDF]