Prototyping HCAI surveillance system

A sub-group of the government Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance & Healthcare-Associated Infections (ARHAI) recommended that surveillance of infections in ICUs should be a priority and that as a starting point surveillance of catheter-associated BSIs should be re-established following work previously delivered by the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA). This recommendation has been accepted by the DH who have tasked PHE's Department of HCAI & AMR with undertaking ICU infection surveillance. This is a high profile national initiative aimed at improving the quality of infection management in ICU patients.

The new initiative has been named the Infection in Critical Care Quality Improvement Programme (ICCQIP) and includes representatives from a number of stakeholders including the Intensive Care national Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC), British Association of Critical Care Nurses (BACCN), infection Societies and infection control specialists at University College London Hospital (UCHL). In order to initiate and implement this surveillance a data collection system and associated database are required. The ICCQIP Steering Group has agreed that in order to support patient care and a quality improvement programme, the surveillance data captured needs to include patient-level data which will enable PHE to undertake data linkage work with existing PHE and other datasets (e.g. SGSS, HES). Outputs from this surveillance are expected to directly impact upon local practice and patient care in ICUs. The proposal supports a key PHE objective of developing the evidence base to help reduce key infections, including HCAIs. The surveillance system should also allow an assessment of the burden of infection caused by pathogens resistant to first-line antibiotics. >> The Data Capture System for Infections in Critical Care Units (ICCU) was developed in 2013/14 to pilot and develop a methodology and dataset to enable the introduction of national voluntary surveillance. The system collects patient level surveillance data on CCU's including adult, paediatric and neonatal units. This has been designed in close collaboration with the professional and clinically led Infections in Critical Care Units Quality Improvement Programme (ICCQIP). ICCQIP was established at the request of the Department of Health and PHE asked to facilitate the surveillance scheme to support it's work. Reducing key infections including HCAI's in CCU's is a key priorty for PHE. this contract encompasses both system maintenance and support (£17.1k) and capital improvements (£14.9k) that are necessary to enhance the prototype to enable it's use nationally. This is crucial to inform the development of a substantive system and it is planned this will be incorporated onto the new HCAI DCS over 2015/16 and 2016/17.