Infection Control Champions and Accreditation Programme

East Sussex County Council, Hastings and Rother, Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford and High Weald Lewes Havens Clinical Commissioning Groups intend to commission a service provider to train staff that are responsible for the infection prevention and control standards within residential and domiciliary care organisations. The aim of the Infection Control Champions and accreditation Programme is to provide a training and resource package and an accreditation opportunity for care homes, to work towards accreditation. To improve outcomes of care for residents and to reduce the number and spread of outbreaks within care homes which could lead to the temporary closure of care home beds and result in unnecessary admissions. Participation in the programme can be used to support CQC reviews and inspections, commissioning organisations and safeguarding visits, and can provide a positive message in the marketing and promotion of the home. There are 300 are Homes registered with the CQC in the 3 Clinical Commissioning Groups areas High Weald Lewes & Havens, Eastbourne Seaford and Hailsham and Hastings & Rother. This programme has been created for registered care homes to help them meet the legal requirement for infection prevention and control with the Code of Practice of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The service will provide support through offering high standard training, ongoing support and a process of audit. The programme will be aimed at the person responsible for infection control in the nursing; it will be their responsibility to cascade learning from the programme within the care home and domiciliary agency staff. This would be followed up with meetings, a link to guidance on the ESCC extra net web site and newsletters.