Welcome

The NHSScotland National Infection Prevention and Control Manual  (NIPCM) was first published on 13 January 2012, by the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO (2012)1), and updated on 17 May 2012 (CNO (2012)1 Update). 

The NIPCM provides guidance to all those involved in care provision and should be adopted for infection prevention and control practices and procedures. The national manual is mandatory for NHSScotland. In all other care settings to support with health and social care integration the content of this manual is considered best practice.

The manual aims to:

• Make it easy for care staff to apply effective infection prevention and control precautions.
• Reduce variation and optimise infection prevention and control practices throughout Scotland.
• Improve the application of knowledge and skills in infection prevention and control
• Help reduce the risk of Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI).
• Help alignment of practice, education, monitoring, quality improvement and scrutiny.

The NIPCM currently contains guidance on Standard Infection Control Precautions (SICPs), Chapter 1 and Transmission Based Precautions (TBPs), Chapter 2 and Healthcare Infection incidents, outbreaks and data exceedance - Chapter 3. It is planned to further develop the content of the manual.

The NIPCM was endorsed on 3 April 2017.

Latest News

• 18 Feb 2019New Appendix 16 Best Practice - Aide Memoire for levels of PPE for healthcare workers when providing patient care
• 01 Feb 2019Updated HIIAT and HIIORT now available on the NIPCM
• 28 Jan 2019Update to HIIAT Green SOP, Protocol and Template
• 21 Dec 2018Updated Appendix 12 now available
• 02 Nov 2018New literature review: Infection prevention and control for patients with cystic fibrosis