Edexcel Level 3 BTEC Nationals in Health and Social Care

UNIT 39: INFECTION PREVENTION AND CONTROLP3, P4 and P5 require reference to a health and social care workplace. Learnersshould be encouraged to refer to their work experience placements in order to gainthe required evidence, though this could be supplemented through the use of casestudy materials. For P3 a piece of writing is required in which learners describestandard precautions for the prevention and control of infection in a health or socialcare workplace, and this could be linked to P4 in terms of the relevant legislationand guidelines. Only the key points of such legislation are required. M1 links P3 andP4, and requires learners to consider the role of organisational procedures. D1 thenextends this further, with learners needing to explain how legal requirementsinfluence infection prevention and control procedures in a health or social careworkplace. For this they need to consider the impact of legislation and guidelines onorganisational policies and procedures, and the value of these in relation to infectionprevention and control. They should consider the strengths of the legal requirementsand also any limitations, as appropriate.In order to achieve P5 learners could carry out a survey of a health and social caresetting in order to ascertain work roles in relation to infection prevention andcontrol. M2 then leads on from this, with learners either carrying out a riskassessment themselves, and describing it, or describing a risk assessment they haveobserved in a health or social care setting. Finally, for D2, learners need to explainhow risk assessment can contribute to improving infection prevention and control in ahealth or social care workplace. They can use the risk assessment they carried out orobserved as the basis of this, but then broaden their explanation and draw uponother examples.Links to National Occupational Standards, other BTEC units, other BTECqualifications and other relevant units and qualificationsThis unit has been developed using the Skills for Care Knowledge Set for InfectionPrevention and Control. However, the principles of infection control are scientificallydriven, and learners should be able to contextualise them to other health and socialcare environments.The knowledge gained through this unit will underpin many other units in theprogramme. It will be further developed in particular in Unit 6: Personal andProfessional Development in Health and Social Care, Unit 12: Public Health, andUnit 35: Introduction to Microbiology for Health and Social Care.This unit should enable learners to gain some of the underpinning knowledge for thefollowing units of the Level 3 NVQ in Health and Social Care:• Unit HSC32: Promote, monitor and maintain health, safety and security inthe working environment• Unit HSC33: Reflect on and develop your practice.486BN018467 – Specification – Edexcel Level 3 BTEC Nationals in Health and Social Care– Issue 1 – February 2007 © Edexcel Limited 2007