Infection prevention and control

Standard Precautions are a set of routine infection prevention and control practices used to prevent transmission of diseases associated with healthcare.  

Standard Precautions should be used for all patient/client care activities, regardless of their diagnosis or suspected infectious status. This helps to protect health care workers from infection and prevents the spread of infection from patient to patient. 

Before any patient interaction, all health care workers should also assess the infectious risks posed to themselves, their colleagues, other patients and visitors. 

The key elements of Standard Precautions are as follows: 

• Hand hygiene - hand hygiene must be performed before every episode of direct patient care and after any activity/task or contact that potentially results in hands becoming contaminated, including before and after putting on and removing personal protective equipment (PPE), and after equipment decontamination and waste handling.
• Personal protective equipment (PPE) - Select PPE before any health care activity based on an assessment of the likely risk of exposure to body substances or contaminated surfaces. For example, wear gloves if your hands may be in contact with body fluids, wear an apron or gown to prevent soiling of clothing, and wear a face shield/mask/goggle if droplets or splashes are likely to be generated near your face (eg, when taking a nasopharyngeal swab). 
  • More on Personal protective equipment use in health and disability care settings
• Respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette - sneezing or coughing into the crook of your elbow or covering coughs and sneezes with a tissue, then putting the tissue in a bin and cleaning your hands. 
• Safe use and disposal of needles and other sharps  
• Aseptic ‘non-touch’ technique - for all invasive procedures, including appropriate use of skin antisepsis.  
• Patient care equipment – clean, disinfect and reprocess reusable equipment between patients.  
• Appropriate cleaning and disinfection - of environmental and other frequently touched surfaces. 
• Safe waste management  
• Safe handling of linen 

Find out more about standard precautions in health care – World Health Organisation

Hand hygiene means washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds and drying them for 20 seconds. You can also use hand sanitiser (containing at least 60 percent alcohol) if soap, water and paper hand towels are not available, and if your hands are not visibly dirty. If you use hand sanitiser, cover all the surfaces of your hands and rub them together until they feel dry. 

Perform hand hygiene before and after touching a patient/client, before and after clean or aseptic procedures, after touching patient surroundings, as well as before and after putting on and taking off PPE. 

Remember to wash your hands before preparing and eating food, after using the toilet, and after sneezing and coughing. 

• Review the 5 moments for hand hygiene.
• World Hand Hygiene Day 2022 – Health Quality & Safety Commission New Zealand

People with respiratory symptoms should be encouraged to sneeze or cough into the crook of their elbow or cover their coughs and sneezes with a tissue, and to then put the tissue in a bin and clean their hands. 

Health care facilities should: 

• Put signage at the entrance to health care facilities instructing people with acute respiratory symptoms to practice respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette, and alert staff to their symptoms. 
• Make hand hygiene information, hand sanitiser, tissues and masks available in common areas and areas used for the evaluation of patients with respiratory illnesses. 
• Place people with acute respiratory symptoms at least 1 metre away from others in common waiting areas or in a single room (if available). Ask the person to wear a mask until they can be moved to a single room. 

Transmission-Based Precautions are a secondary set of infection prevention and control practices. They are used in addition to Standard Precautions for patients who may be infected or colonised with infectious pathogens, specifically to prevent transmission of infections.

Transmission-Based Precautions are – contact, droplet and airborne.  
 
The Transmission-Based Precautions required to prevent each mode of transmission are set out in the following sections of this page. 

Contact Precautions are required when interacting with people known or suspected to have infections or diseases that can be transmitted through either direct or indirect contact with people, objects or environmental surfaces that have infectious matter on them. 

The following Contact Precautions apply for all interactions that involve contact with the patient or potentially contaminated objects and surfaces in the patient’s environment: 

• Wear single-use, non-sterile gloves. 
• Wear a disposable plastic apron or long sleeve gown. 

The patient should be placed in a single room, preferably with its own bathroom. Appropriate signage of PPE requirements should be displayed outside the room. 

Droplet Precautions are required when interacting with people known or suspected to have infections or diseases that can be spread by droplets. 

The following Droplet Precautions apply for all interactions: 

• Wear a medical mask upon room entry or when interactions mean that physical distancing of 1 metre cannot be maintained 
• Wear eye protection (goggles or face shield) to reduce exposure to respiratory droplets by touching your eyes or patient coughing or sneezing 
• Where possible, the patient should wear a medical mask whilst awaiting assessment, or for any movement outside of the single room, along with strict adherence to respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette. 

The patient should be placed in a single room, preferably with its own bathroom. Appropriate signage of PPE requirements should be displayed outside the room. 

Airborne Precautions are required when interacting with people known or suspected to have diseases spread by very small particles that can suspend in the air and can be inhaled into the lungs.  

The following Airborne Precautions apply for all interactions: 

• Wear a P2/N95 particulate respirator that you have fit checked before room entry. For guidance on donning, doffing and fit checking, see PPE information on masks, respirators, gloves, aprons and eye protection.
• Where possible, the patient should wear a mask whilst awaiting assessment, or for any movement outside of a single room, along with strict adherence to respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette.

  
Patients in a hospital setting should be placed within an airborne infection isolation room (negative pressure room). In other settings, the patient should be placed in a single room, preferably with its own bathroom. Appropriate signage of PPE requirements should be displayed outside the room. 

Multi-drug resistant organism – Information leaflet - te reo Māori (DOCX, 97 KB)

Multi-drug resistant organism – Information leaflet - English (DOCX, 97 KB)

Why am I in isolation? – Information leaflet - te reo Māori (DOCX, 103 KB)

Why am I in isolation? – Information leaflet - English (DOCX, 97 KB)

Information about methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) - te reo Māori (DOCX, 95 KB)

Information about methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) - English (DOCX, 97 KB)

This guidance provides a risk assessment framework for local IPC and microbiology laboratories to develop appropriate policies, procedures and MDRO surveillance as required by the Nga Paerewa / Health and Disability Services Standard. 

Interim minimal guidance for MDRO admission screening and placement in a NZ hospital – June 2024 (DOCX, 94KB)

Interim minimal guidance for MDRO admission screening and placement in a NZ hospital – June 2024 (PDF, 173KB)

IPC Assessment Tool for MDRO outbreak readiness (PDF 336KB)

IPC Assessment Tool for MDRO outbreak readiness (DOCX 298KB)

The Health Quality & Safety Commission’s national Infection prevention and control programme aims to improve patient outcomes by reducing the incidence and impact of healthcare associated infections within the New Zealand health and disability sector.

Infection, prevention and control – Health Quality & Safety Commission New Zealand

Ministry of Health in conjunction with Careerforce have developed an on-line learning module for healthcare staff working in a variety of healthcare settings such as aged residential care, medical centre or the community.

This resource is a self-contained module based on IPC practices and the correct use of PPE.

Free to access and developed in Aotearoa New Zealand, NZAT is a simple, consistent approach to aseptic technique. It is consistent with, and complementary to, other aseptic education that some healthcare organisations have invested in, such as the Aseptic Non-Touch Technique.

Developed by experts across the health sector with support from ACC and Health NZ Hutt Valley, Capital and Coast and Counties Manukau, NZAT is designed for all health professionals who undertake procedures that may introduce infection, in any clinical setting.

These resources are available at LearnOnline.health.nz to support you and your organisation to use the NZAT. They are free to access and use, and it takes less than two minutes to create a log in. You will have access to:   

• an in-person training package – this is a PowerPoint presentation to deliver in-person training to staff along with a supporting educational handout. 

• an audit package including an audit tool and auditor’s user guide. These can be used to determine current practice and knowledge of aseptic technique principles, assess ongoing competency and further learning opportunities.    
• an online e-learning module for healthcare workers. This takes about 30 minutes to complete, and learners will receive a printable certificate which can contribute to their professional development. This module can be added to your own e-learning platform, please contact us for more information.   
• an Aseptic Technique policy template – developed by Health NZ Hutt Valley. This template is modifiable and can be used by organisations to support their compliance with the Ngā Parewa Health and Disability Sector Standard.

Please share this email with your teams/networks as you see fit.

Visit LearnOnline.health.nz for more information and to access the resources. Contact infection_prevention@acc.co.nz if you have any questions. 

A draft National IPC Strategy and draft IPC Action Plan have been distributed for consultation across the health sector until 17 June 2022. 

The purpose of the strategy is to enable those in leadership, planning, and co-ordination roles, to make and influence decisions, that will support the reformed health system to reduce healthcare-associated infections (HIAs) and the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Aotearoa New Zealand.

A key purpose of the strategy is to enable a reduction in incidence of HAIs through effective IPC measures for Māori and other groups who are overrepresented with poorer health outcomes as an achievable goal for improvement. Through the five key priority areas, specific focus on equity for Māori will aim to reduce the impact that HAIs and AMR have on Māori consumers, whānau and staff.

The National Infection Prevention and Control Leadership Group works to give guidance to the health sector about infection prevention and control (IPC). It also works with other agencies to lead development of a national IPC strategy.

National Infection Prevention and Control Leadership Group