Australia RACGP Standards for General Practices (5th edition) GP4.1: Infection prevention and control, including sterilisation: a clinical team member leads infection prevention and the supply of sterile equipment; the practice has a written practice-specific infection control policy and a team member who educates the team; everyone manages cross-infection risk through hand hygiene, personal protective equipment, safe handling of sharps and waste, triage of infectious patients and environmental cleaning; patients are told about respiratory etiquette and hand hygiene; and when sterile items are used the sterilisation load number is recorded in the patient's record with the patient's name logged against the load

What does GP4.1 require?

Infection control protects patients and staff alike. The practice names a clinician responsible for coordinating infection prevention and control and for ensuring an adequate supply of sterile equipment, whether reprocessed on site under a validated process or purchased single-use, and a clinician responsible for educating the team. A written infection control policy specific to the practice covers hand hygiene, standard and transmission-based precautions, PPE, sharps and waste, spills, cleaning of the premises and equipment, triage and isolation of potentially infectious patients, management of exposures, and the reprocessing or sterilisation process with its validation, monitoring and record keeping, consistent with the RACGP Infection prevention and control guidelines. All team members apply these methods. Patients are informed about covering coughs, hand hygiene and other precautions. Whenever a sterile item is used on a patient, the load number printed on the sterile barrier packaging is entered in the patient's record and the patient's name recorded against the load in a sterilisation log, so a failed load can be traced to every patient.