Welcome

Infection prevention is part of everyday care in residential and nursing homes. Many residents are older, frail, living with long-term conditions, or have difficulty communicating when unwell. Because of this, infections can spread quickly if hand hygiene, shared equipment cleaning, laundry, waste handling, or staff responses to early illness signs are not maintained.

This course is aimed at care assistants, senior carers, support workers, team leaders, supervisors and other frontline residential care staff. It covers practical infection prevention, environmental cleaning, routine decontamination of shared care equipment, and everyday decisions that reduce cross-infection risk while keeping the home welcoming rather than clinical.

The content is written for residential care staff across the UK. Where appropriate it refers to DHSC, UKHSA, NHS England, CQC and HSE guidance, and signposts differences in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The core practices apply UK-wide: clean hands, correct PPE, clean environments, decontaminated equipment, safe laundry and waste processes, and early escalation when infection patterns appear.

Four-nations IPC note

Why This Course Matters

• Small errors can spread infection: a missed hand wash, a poorly cleaned commode, or a contaminated cloth can cause transmission to several people.
• Care homes are shared living spaces: bedrooms, bathrooms, lounges, dining areas and communal equipment need reliable systems to reduce risk.
• Cleaning and decontamination are different: staff must know when routine cleaning is sufficient and when stronger decontamination is required.
• Frontline staff often spot problems first: new symptoms, unsafe practice, supply shortages or emerging outbreak patterns are frequently noticed during routine care.
• Good IPC protects staff as well as residents: correct product use, PPE, vaccination and sensible work exclusion all reduce risk.

How This Course Will Help You

On completion you should be able to explain how infections spread in residential care, apply standard precautions with more confidence, clean and decontaminate equipment and environments safely, manage laundry and waste correctly, and recognise when to escalate concerns or trigger outbreak measures.