Veterinary nursing: Hygiene and infection control

Infection prevention and control strategies are designed to protect patients, veterinary staff, owners and the wider community. The whole veterinary team must play an active role in protecting the veterinary setting from the risk associated with poor infection control; however, there needs to be someone within the team that provides the driving force to strive for gold standard practices. Emma Gerrard explores aspects of infection control and provides a summary of the implementations required to become the infection control champion in practice.

This chapter covers the role of the surgical nurse, hygiene and sterility procedures, the use and maintenance of equipment, sutures and wound dressing. Includes self-assessment questions.

Animal wards can take many different forms. This is dependent on a number of issues. Consideration include the amount of space available; the number of animals to be housed; the type of animal to be housed in the ward; the expected length of stay of the animals; the expected medical and surgical conditions; the number of staff members who will work on the ward; and any additional equipment that will need to be stored (of particular importance for intensive care units). A hygienic environment is important in maintaining good health for animals. Standard sanitary operating procedures (SSOPs) are sets of procedures to be carried out as an area is cleaned. The objective is to achieve a standard cleaning system, which all staff will follow, and one that can be checked once completed to ensure that it reaches the required standard.