Guidance

Infection prevention and control: quick guide for care workers

Updated 1 March 2024

Applies to England

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Understanding how infection is spread is crucial to effective infection prevention and control (IPC).

You should be trained in the IPC measures you need to carry out your job. If you need further support or guidance on IPC you should approach your manager, employer or your local authority.

You should ensure you are aware of the IPC measures needed where you work including any additional IPC measures relating to people you care for or activities you carry out.

Following IPC measures and limiting the spread of infection is everyone’s responsibility.

Hand hygiene

Clean your hands before and after contact with someone you care for, after exposure to blood or body fluids, before handling food or drink and before any clean or aseptic procedures.

You should help the people you care for to keep their hands clean.

Hands should be washed for 20 seconds, with all areas of the hands and wrists cleaned.

Hands should be washed with liquid soap and warm, running water and dried using paper towels.

You can clean your hands with alcohol-based hand rub instead of soap and water if your hands are not visibly dirty and there has been no risk of exposure to blood or body fluids.

When caring for someone with vomiting or diarrhoea you should make sure you wash your hands using soap and water. These illnesses can be caused by germs which are not destroyed by alcohol-based hand rub.

See World Health Organisation posters on:

Respiratory hygiene

Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when sneezing, coughing, or wiping or blowing your nose. Dispose of all used tissues into a waste bin.

If you do not have a tissue, you should sneeze or cough into the crook of your elbow.

Clean your hands after coughing, sneezing, using tissues or after contact with respiratory secretions such as saliva or mucus.

You should support the people you care for to follow this advice as well.

Personal protective equipment

Think about whether you need personal protective equipment (PPE) before you start a task and make sure you know what PPE is suitable.

Wash your hands before putting on PPE and after taking off and disposing of used PPE.

Wear gloves and aprons if you expect to come into contact with non-intact skin, mucous membranes, blood or body fluids.

Always wash your hands after taking off gloves.

You should only wear gloves and aprons for one task. You should dispose of them if they get contaminated and when you are finished with your task.

You may need to wear additional PPE such as face masks and eye protection on some occasions, such as where there is a risk of being splashed by blood or body fluids.

Additional PPE may also be recommended because of particular diseases, such as the recommendation to wear face masks while COVID-19 is circulating.

See the quick guide for putting on and taking off standard PPE.

Cleaning

Where your role includes cleaning, make sure you know which cleaning products to use and where and how often you need to clean.

Any spillage of blood or other bodily fluids should be cleaned up immediately. You should make sure you know how to do this.

Laundry

If your role includes doing laundry, make sure you know how to deal with laundry from people with infections or which is contaminated by bodily fluids. This may include using a pre-wash or sluice cycle and/or loading laundry into the washing machine inside a water-soluble bag.

Keep clean laundry separate from dirty laundry, including using different containers to carry it.

Wash your hands between handling dirty and clean laundry.

Waste disposal

Make sure you know how to deal with waste in your workplace including how to identify and handle different types of waste including used PPE and waste contaminated by bodily fluids, medicines or chemicals. This may involve colour coding of waste bags.

Make sure you do not overfill waste bags.

Dispose of waste as soon as practically possible.

Wash your hands after handling waste.

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