Thank you to the 90% of residential aged care facilities who have reported in My Aged Care their nominated nursing staff member to complete specialist training and become an infection prevention and control (IPC) lead. The program is critical to safeguarding the health of both residents and workers in residential aged care.
IPC leads are required to complete specialist IPC training by 28 February 2021. We would like to remind providers that:
- meeting the IPC lead requirement is a responsibility for each facility. To enable nurses to successfully complete this training, providers should be providing dedicated study hours, study leave or other support as needed in discussion with each nurse.
- providers should ensure that information reported through the My Aged Care provider portal is updated by 10 March 2021 and kept up to date. This includes changing the completion status of the specialist training to completed once the IPC lead has submitted the coursework and assessments.
The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (the Commission) will monitor the implementation of the IPC leads requirement in its consideration of each facility’s performance against the Aged Care Quality Standards. They have released a fact sheet with further information.
For further information on IPC leads can be found online.