Cards 'next anti-superbug weapon'

The cards will be used to help audit how staff work

Nurses are to be given checklist cards for routine tasks to help prevent the spread of hospital-acquired infections, it has been revealed.

Nursing Standard magazine says there will be step-by-step guides for procedures such as inserting catheters, where there is a risk of infection.

They are part of an infection control package for NHS trusts in England.

The Royal College of Nursing welcomed the cards as "reminders" of what staff should be doing.

Nurses won't all have them in their pockets Sue Wiseman, Royal College of Nursing

The idea of the checklist cards was developed by Janice Nicholson, a former director of nursing, who is director of the Department of Health's MRSA/Cleaner Hospitals programme.

She told Nursing Standard each card would have four or five checkpoints, and said if nurses stuck to them it would bring infection rates down.

Ms Nicholson added: "The real impact is made by being consistent. It is about stating the critical things that may seem glaringly obvious."

The cards will include instructions such as 'put on protective clothing', and 'wash your hands'.

'Reminder'

Ms Nicholson said the idea of the cards came from an American approach - already used in some UK intensive care units - where how a certain task should be carried out is set down so all staff perform them in the same way.

"For example, if a patient is on a ventilator, there may be five things that need to be done every day to reduce the chance of that patient getting a hospital-acquired infection.

"Auditing shows that two or three of those things are routinely done but it is only when you do all five that you get a reduction in infections."

A Department of Health spokesman confirmed nurses would be given checklists, which could be used to audit how tasks were performed.

"These are day-to-day tasks that many nurses will do.

"This is simply a reminder of how to go about infection control."

Sue Wiseman, health protection advisor for the Royal College of Nursing, told the BBC News website the cards would be part of a package trusts would receive containing advice and information on infection control.

"These cards will allow nurses to check what they are doing against best practice.

"They will help ensure the same practices are going on across the board."

But she said: "Nurses won't all have them in their pockets. The cards will just be there for when they feel it's necessary to check."