Mrs Nicola Isles1
1Healthscope, St Kilda Road, Australia
Background: Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Managers have long been under resourced and undervalued. Then the Pandemic hit and everyone started asking for advice, but did they really listen? It seemed that everyone was an expert. Well, we did want ‘Infection Control to be Everyone’s Business’, but did anybody really listen?
Method: Healthscope realised that a National position would be valued by the organisation long before the Pandemic and has always had a team leader that was the go to person nationally on all things IPC; however, this person also had a local role in a hospital.
Results: In 2020 the Pandemic seemed a perfect opportunity to leverage for a National position to ensure the company had an expert and unique to Healthscope, just in case IPC was not enough to keep me busy, I inherited Radiation and Laser Safety and Oncology into my portfolio.
Conclusions: IPC’s tend to be by nature fixers and doers and we tend to put the ‘control’ into IPC, so it is often easier to ‘do’ rather than ‘ask’ others, but we need to learn to delegate.
This presentation will share the challenges, successes and benefits to a National IPC role. How do we now maintain our presence as vital, sustain the listening and communicate better now the Pandemic has settled whilst continuing to be heard and valued at the Board and Executive level within all Healthcare Facilities and within Organisations?
Biography: Nicola has over 35 years of experience as a Registered Nurse with a background in Critical Care and specialising in Infection Prevention and Control in both public and private healthcare facilities. Her current role is as Healthscopes National Infection Prevention, Control and Radiation Safety Manager for 41 Hospitals and is an accredited assessor for the NHQHS National Standards. She was a founding member of ACIPC and a current Board Director, Chair of the Practice Guidance Committee, a member on the Research and Grants Committee and additionally a current Board member for the Australian Vascular Access Society (AVAS).