Cleaning for Confidence campaign

Case study: Amanda Callow, Deputy Director of Nursing and Workforce, Midlands Region, NHS England and NHS Improvement

Case study summary

The Cleaning for Confidence campaign, led by the Midlands’ Nursing and Workforce team, helps to stop the spread of COVID-19 by:

  • encouraging NHS staff to become cleaning champions with a 20-minute e-learning programme, furthering staff knowledge of good cleaning practice
  • offering NHS organisations a communications campaign toolkit with materials and messaging that can be adapted to local needs.

Background of change and intervention

Keeping NHS premises safe and clean for our patients is a key and shared commitment, and this has never been more important than now. A clean workplace is our first and best defence in stopping the spread of COVID-19 and other infections. Tackling nosocomial infections is vital to ensure that the NHS remains safe and efficient. Every person within the NHS family has a part to play in maintaining that commitment to keeping people safe.

Learning and advice to be shared

The regional Cleaning for Confidence campaign was launched across the Midlands in October 2020 during the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Week. This campaign was driven by the Midlands’ Nursing and Workforce team, led by the Deputy Director, to boost IPC practice across the region. It is envisaged that organisations will adopt the campaign either proactively, to guard against outbreaks in any environments; or, reactively, as part of that organisation’s response and recovery work following any outbreak of COVID-19.

The Cleaning for Confidence campaign has three clearly defined goals:

  • to raise the profile of the importance of cleaning in all environments and across all staff groups
  • to support healthcare providers in reinforcing IPC messages and restore services
  • to build public confidence in accessing services.

The campaign encourages NHS staff to become cleaning champions, which is facilitated in several ways. The Cleaning for Confidence e-learning programme was developed by NHS England and NHS Improvement’s Midlands Region team, drawing on staff experiences and supported by Health Education England. This 20-minute programme has been developed to promote staff furthering their knowledge of good cleaning practice and the personal precautions needed to ensure the risk of environmental transmission both for patients and staff is reduced. This aims to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and, as always, reinforcing other behaviours that can help minimise the outbreak of other infections.

A toolkit of communications was also developed, providing organisations with the necessary information to become cleaning champions. These communication resources, and the campaign broadly, have been designed for organisations to personalise the materials and messaging to suit their own organisation’s voice.

Would it be beneficial to retain these changes?

All and any practices designed to keep the delivery of health and care clean and safe should undoubtedly continue beyond the pandemic. While this campaign is in its early stages, it is intended to support organisations with all future and potential outbreaks and to help inform national, regional and local work on infection prevention and control.

For any further detail on this case study, please contact: england.1professionalvoice@nhs.net