P27
REVIEW OF ‘OTHER’ CLASSIFICATION OF CONTROL OF INFECTION CASES AFTER CONTACTING OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
C. Brown, Newcastle OHS, Gosforth, UK
Background
Occupational Health is working with a new database that can be utilised to collate data together to identify trends within the reported data. In terms of Control of Infection (COI) incidents, a large proportion (over 40%) was labelled as ‘Other’.
Aims
- To identify the causative issues within COI incidents.
- Provide additional classification of COI incidents and reduce the overall ‘Other’ classification.
- One of the authors of this audit is a pre-registration nursing student on a placement in Occupational Health. A proficiency they want to achieve is to demonstrate an understanding of the use of service delivery evaluation and audit findings to
bring about continuous improvement.
Methods
An audit was undertaken in October 2023 of all COI incidents out assessed by Newcastle OH Service between 2nd August 2023 and 17th October 2023.
Results
41 COI incidents from 40 different staff members were identified, 48.78% were labelled ‘Other’. When investigated these were discovered to be:
- Injury/Wound (12.2%)
- Norovirus (9.76%)
- Hand Foot and Mouth (7.31%)
- Scabies (7.31%)
- Parasite (4.88%)
- STD (2.44%)
- CMV (2.44%)
- Generally Unwell/Other (2.44%)
Implications for Policy or Practice
- Increasing the number of potential classifications (and thus reducing the ‘Other’ category) can help the trends of COI cases within staff members of the Trust to be more transparent.
- The ability to see at a glance, statistics for if the COI incident is confirmed, suspected and if it is due to a contact and if this contact could be work related.
Reference:
- BMA (2019) Staff Screening and Treatment After Infection Outbreaks-Occupational Health Aspects Available at bma_staff_screening_and_treatment_after_infection_outbreaks_oct_2019.pdf (Accessed: 27th February 2024)
