Hello and welcome to your training programme covering infection prevention and control. Did you know that if a single door handle is contaminated by an infectious disease it can spread around a building within as little as two to four hours? When you stop for a moment to consider just how many millions of micro-organisms you come into contact with each day, it’s easy to see that illnesses can spread anywhere – unless you take steps to help maintain a clean, infection-free working environment. There are many different types of infections and infectious diseases ranging from minor ones, such as a simple cold or mild stomach bug, to those that are more serious, such as Ebola or MRSA. Infection control is an important issue and this programme has been designed to explain why it’s so important and to show you what you can do to help to avoid infections from spreading. This course provides a thorough overview of the subject of infection prevention and control – for health and social care workers with existing experience, as well as new carers who are working towards completing their Care Certificate. It covers everything you need to know from The Care Certificate Workbook: Standard 15 – Infection Prevention and Control. Throughout this course, whenever you see this symbol in the corner of your screen, it means that we’re discussing something you need to know for the Care Certificate.