We are delighted to announce the new WHO Guidelines on Core Components of Infection Prevention and Control Programmes at the National and Acute Health Care Facility Level.
Strong, effective and evidence-based IPC programmes and practices play a critical role in the prevention of AMR; therefore, it is no coincidence that we launch these new Guidelines in support of the global AMR movement during the World Antibiotic Awareness Week (http://www.who.int/campaigns/world-antibiotic-awareness-week/en/)!
These new guidelines build upon the previous “core components” indicated by WHO in a meeting report issued in 2009, but they represent a significant step forward as they include formal recommendations based on a rigorous evaluation of the available scientific evidence and the experience and technical contribution of a large multidisciplinary group of experts and country delegates from all over the world.
They address eight areas (IPC programmes; Evidence Based Guidelines; Education and Training; Surveillance; Multimodal Strategies; Monitoring, Audit and Feedback; Workload, Staffing and Bed Occupancy and the Built Environment, Materials and Equipment) and comprise 11 recommendations and 3 Good Practice Statements.
These guidelines on the core components of IPC programmes form a key part of WHO strategies to prevent current and future threats such as outbreaks of highly transmissible diseases including Ebola and ultimately strengthen health service resilience. They are intended also to support countries and health care facilities as they develop or strengthen their own approaches to IPC in the context of their AMR national action plans as well as WASH in health care activities.
You can find the guidelines at http://www.who.int/gpsc/ipc-components/en/ accompanied by:
– Their web appendices
– a 2-pager that summarises the work and the Guideline recommendations
– a new IPC infographic
– some slides summarizing the methods and the recommendations, in the context of the work of the WHO IPC Global Unit. Please note that on 14 November 2016 Benedetta released this presentation through the Webber free teleclasses and the recording is available here: http://www.webbertraining.com/schedulep1.php
A new IPC advocacy video to support dissemination and advocacy will be issued at the end of this week .
A paper on the recommendations and evidence background have also been submitted in the open access, peer reviewed journal – Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control (ARIC), further emphasising the interconnection between AMR and IPC.
This email comes shortly after we announced to you that the new WHO Global guidelines for the prevention of surgical site Infection and associated resources were made available here on 3 Nov. http://www.who.int/gpsc/ssi-guidelines/en/index.
We kindly ask that through your own work streams you do what you can to spread to message that both these guidelines are now available. Please widely disseminate through social media website promotion, newsletters and other means.
We thank very much all those who have contributed. We believe that these are great steps forward in ensuring that every country and area can improve patient safety and quality of care! We have a long and exciting way forward head of us to disseminate and support implementation and our team is already working on the development of implementation guidance and tools and training packages (to be released early 2017).
We look forward to keeping in touch and many thanks in advance for your support with dissemination.
