Helping healthcare staff to apply the correct procedures for infection control
To prevent the spread of infection in healthcare settings, it is vital that NHS staff know how to take the correct precautions and effectively manage patients who have an infection or are at risk of infection
While the National Infection Prevention and Control Manual provides guidance to all those involved in care provision and is considered best practice across all health and care settings in Scotland, instilling confidence in following its principles through enhanced educational approaches allows staff to deepen their knowledge and decision making.
Infection Management Game
The Infection Management Game was an idea from Odette Brooks, a Critical Care Infection Surveillance Nurse at NHS Lothian, which was then developed alongside InnoScot Health.
The game offers a unique, engaging tool for assisting workforce training in limiting infection outbreaks. It encourages staff to improve their knowledge of relevant policy documents, while gaining reassurance for managing patients and risk.
Players are able to explore a broad range of precautions, procedures, and best practice to ensure they deliver effective infection management.
Topics include infection risk assessment; understanding and applying local/national policies and procedures; cleaning of environment and care equipment; Personal Protective Equipment (PPE); and hand hygiene.
Support and collaboration
Odette wanted to create a training resource that could be used within the workplace in a short time with no need for travel or IT provision.
The aim of the training resource was to be interactive, engaging, and promote discussion by using care-based scenarios to support clinical teams’ learning, while developing and maintaining critical skills and procedures.
Odette worked with the team at InnoScot Health to protect the idea, develop prototypes, and identify a manufacturer — Focus Games — allowing the Infection Management Game to become available to teams across the country.
Impact
The Infection Management Game launched in 2019 and has been used by NHS Health Boards across Scotland including the Western Isles, Lanarkshire and Lothian; and by NHS Acute Trusts in England, including Surrey and Sussex, Buckingham, East Suffolk, Berkshire and Salisbury.
It has further been used by local authorities such as Leeds City Council, and by Teeside University for nurse training. The game was also shortlisted in the Infection Prevention and Control category at the Nursing Times Awards 2022.
Odette said that she’d received “positive feedback from colleagues and health professionals,” considering it to be “a hugely valuable training aid for staff across health and social care environments”.
InnoScot Health took care of all the contractual and legal elements of the process while the team at Focus Games produced the game. Importantly, this allowed me to remain focused on my clinical work.
Odette Brooks, Critical Care Infection Surveillance Nurse, NHS Lothian
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