Abstract

Disease non-battle injury has plagued British expeditionary forces through the ages. While in recent years significant mortality has reduced, it has had a large impact on operational effectiveness, at times leading to closure of major medical treatment facilities (MTFs).

Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) benefits from a subject matter expert and champion to ensure it remains at the front of people’s minds and to be on hand to manage acute and dynamic situations. To mitigate the lack of an IPC Nursing Officer, we piloted a deployed military IPC Lead Link Practitioner (IPC-LL) for the first time on a large-scale overseas exercise (SAIF SAREEA 3). An experienced generalist nurse deploying as the IPC-LL (after specific training) provided pre-deployment IPC education and preparation, deployed IPC advice, undertook mandatory audits and monitored IPC compliance throughout the MTFs on the exercise. Data from 22 IPC audits conducted on the exercise showed that the presence of the IPC-LL improved IPC compliance and standards overall in the MTF where based, compared with others. In addition, a gastroenteritis outbreak occurred and was successfully managed with significant input from the IPC-LL. The IPC-LL was also able to add value by pre-empting potential IPC problems from occurring.

There is a small pool of deployable Infection Prevention and Control Nursing Officers, so this new IPC-LL role could help to fill the capability gap. The IPC-LL could be the dedicated person focusing on IPC elements, reducing the IPC risk within the deployed field hospital setting where deployed experts are not available.