Infection Prevention and Control Week

Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Week is held during the third week of October each year to highlight the importance of preventing infections. The theme for IPC Week 2025 is A proactive approach to IPC: Identify the risk, Protect patients and the workforce, Control the spread of infection. Everyone has a role in the prevention and control of infections in health care.

Background

Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Week aims to promote better infection prevention and control practices in health care and to recognise the efforts of all healthcare workers to reduce the risk of infection in health services.

Everyone has a role in the prevention and control of infections in health care. Simple actions, such as cleaning shared patient equipment between each use and hand hygiene, can make big difference.

IPC Week 2025 – 19 to 25 October

The Commission’s focus for IPC Week 2025 is A proactive approach to IPC: Identify the risk, Protect patients and the workforce, Control the spread of infection. This theme aims to support the health workforce to prevent infections from occurring and spreading using simple strategies that protect patients and themselves.

Use our resources below to identify, protect and control in your health service organisation.

Taking a proactive approach to identifying the risk for infection - Identify, protect and control infection

Identifying infection risks

Identifying and managing the risks for infections reduces the risk of infection transmission and improves patient safety in healthcare settings.

The Workforce Immunisation risk matrix is an example of a risk assessment tool that can be used to identify, evaluate and address risks associated with vaccine preventable diseases.
IPC surveillance programs can be used to evaluate IPC strategies and improve the quality of care provided to patients. Examples of resources to support IPC surveillance in the health care including HAI surveillance and environmental cleaning auditing
Stay informed about emerging infectious diseases helps to identify who your high-risk patients are, and what interventions are needed to protect them. Use data from CARAlert, APAS and infection surveillance to inform your organisation's infection prevention and control strategy.
Act early when a patient shows signs and symptoms of infection. Interventions, such as appropriate patient placement and standard and transmission-based precautions, reduces the risk of infection transmission. The Commission has developed resources to support healthcare workers to respond to infections early including information for primary care providers on community-onset Clostridioides difficile Infection (CDI) and antimicrobial stewardship in Australian health care (the AMS book).

Protecting patients and workforce from infection

Protecting patients from infection includes preventive health strategies that focus on education and promotion of hand hygiene, vaccination, good skin care, oral care, falls prevention, the appropriate use of peripheral intravenous catheters, and antimicrobial stewardship.

Protecting the health workforce from infection includes promoting hand hygiene, good skin care, workforce screening and vaccination programs, sharps safety, safe systems of work that minimise the risk of spreading infections (including exclusion periods), occupational exposure management plans and the provision and correct use of PPE.

Hand hygiene is easiest and most effective way to protect both healthcare workers and patients from infection. This series of short videos highlights the important role healthcare workers have in role modelling good hand hygiene.

Control the infection before it spreads

Transmission of infectious agents within a healthcare setting requires all the following elements:

A source of infection
A reservoir
A portal of exit
A means of transmission
A portal of entry
A susceptible host.

This is called the Chain of Infection. Standard and transmission-based precautions are strategies used to break the Chain of Infection:

Standard precautions are the first-line approach to infection prevention and control in healthcare. Applying standard precautions minimises the risk of transmission of infectious agents from person to person, even in high-risk situations.
Transmission-based precautions are additional work practices used in situations where standard precautions alone may be insufficient to prevent transmission. Transmission-based precautions include contact, droplet and airborne precautions.

Risk assessment and management is a fundamental part of infection prevention and control to prevent and control the transmission of infection in healthcare. The reprocessing reusable medical equipment gap analysis tool is an example of a risk assessment and management strategy that can be used by health service organisations to identify risks associated with reusable medical equipment, develop actions plans to support strategies to manage the risk and ensure compliance with Australian and International Standards for the reusable medical equipment.

Educational resources

National guidelines

Australian Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of Infection in Healthcare

2019

Guide, user guide or guidelines

The Aged Care Infection Prevention and Control Guide

2024

Guide, user guide or guidelines

thumbnail_-_recommendations_for_the_control_of_cpe

Recommendations for the control of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales

2021

Guide, user guide or guidelines

Presentations

Quiz

Online modules for health workers

Consumer resources

Join the conversation

Clinicians and organisations can share our resources through your local networks and social channels during IPC Week. Promoting IPC Week will raise awareness about the importance of infection prevention and control and improving patient safety.

Other social media accounts to follow

Find more in our resource library

Infection Prevention Control and Healthcare-Associated Infections