The role of the infection control link nurse

Link nurses act as a link between their own clinical area and the infection control team. Their role is to increase awareness of infection control issues in their ward and motivate staff to improve practice. It is essential that they receive training from the infection control team to ensure their competence. They have been shown to be of value to Trusts by improving clinical ward audit scores, helping infection control nurses implement policies and collecting data on hospital-acquired infections. In some hospitals, however, there are operational difficulties for link nurse schemes including high turnover of staff and insufficient time for training and monitoring their effectiveness.