Infection prevention: celebrating success

The Schülke Infection Prevention and Control awards aim to celebrate infection prevention and control (IP&C) success and are open to all teams, surgeries, practices, wards, and departments across the UK – both in primary and secondary care. The latest winners were recently announced – demonstrating passion, commitment and innovation in driving improvement in patient safety. 

Hospital and community healthcare teams across the UK entered the 2015 Schülke Infection Prevention and Control team of the year awards. Any initiative relating to IP&C can be entered for the awards; teams may be working with long-term urinary catheters, vascular access devices, surgical site infections, enteral feeding tubes or working more generally to improve patient safety by reducing preventable healthcare associated infections. The standard of entries was commendably high and choosing an overall winner was not an easy task. 

However the team of three judges, which included Professor Heather Loveday, president of the Infection Prevention Society (IPS), were unanimous in deciding that the award should go to the team at Meadowcare Nursing Home in Bristol and said the team are “worthy winners of this prestigious award”. Meadowcare is a specialist home for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s, providing 24 hour care for up to 34 residents. This is the first time in the award’s history that it has been won by a care home. Previous winners have all been hospital based.