Sodexo and Essity have partnered with the Infection Prevention Society (IPS) for the third Environment Cleaning and Decontamination (ECD) conference, to tackle the future of the built environment.
It has long been acknowledged that the built environment plays a crucial role in infection control. Healthcare facilities need to be designed and renovated to prevent the spread of infections among patients, staff and visitors.
Consultant Medical Microbiologist Michael Weinbren; healthcare estates management expert Andrew Poplett and State Registered Public Health Microbiologist Dr Susanne Surman-Lee will share perspectives on Shaping the Future of the Built Environment at the forthcoming IPS ECD Conference, due to take place in Northampton on 20 March.
Sodexo Health & Care and Essity’s global leading professional hygiene brand Tork have partnered together for third time with the IPS to build on the success of the last two conferences.
IPS President and ECD Lead, Lisa Butcher, said: “Our working party holds a wide depth of knowledge and experience and brings fresh ideas to the mix,” said IPS President and ECD Lead Lisa Butcher.
Michael Weinbren is an infection control doctor focusing on water and wastewater as a source of organisms and antimicrobial resistance transmission within healthcare settings. He is currently working as the specialist microbiology advisor for the New Hospital Programme.
Andrew Poplett has over 35 years’ experience of healthcare estates management and has specialist knowledge of water and critical healthcare ventilation systems. He currently provides advice, support, awareness training and independent auditing services to over 40 NHS trusts and private healthcare providers in his role as an Authorising Engineer.
Dr Susanne Surman-Lee has over 40 years in clinical and public health microbiology. Susanne is passionate about ensuring the patient is put at the forefront of healthcare building design, and the need for multidisciplinary expertise to develop project water safety plans to ensure safe water provision for all users and all uses at each point of exposure.
The aim of IPS ECD is to promote best practices in the environment, cleaning and decontamination in hospital and community environments with a view to preventing healthcare-associated infections. Free to attend, it is open to all healthcare practitioners and educational resources will be made available throughout the year to support ongoing learning and development.
Lisa continued: “At IPS, we recognise that we need to support our IPC practitioners to have the fundamental knowledge of maintaining a safe environment for patients, visitors or staff, regardless of the healthcare setting in which they work.
“The availability of knowledge sharing and learning in such areas as ventilation, safe water management and decontamination is limited. Masters in IPC don’t have time in the curriculum to look at topics like this and IPC specialists have to learn ‘on the job’.”
Essity Professional Hygiene Healthcare Marketing Director Thomas Bergin says Tork is proud to continue its important partnership with IPS and Sodexo. He commented: “As part of the global hygiene and health company Essity, we are dedicated to creating safe care environments and ultimately to help prevent HAIs. This partnership provides us with the opportunity to work with the infection prevention community by creating a collaborative platform to support effective surface cleaning and hand hygiene.”
Simon Lilley, Marketing Director, Sodexo Health & Care, added: “Reducing and preventing the effects of infectious diseases is vital to ensure safety and improve outcomes. Partnering with Essity to deliver this event supports our aim to create better patient and staff experiences, improve clinical outcomes and ultimately improve patient flow by reducing delayed discharges.”
