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The Centre for Infection Prevention and Management (CIPM) is a Research Centre within Imperial College London and collaborates with Public Health England as well as a number of faculties across the College. Its aim is to tackle healthcare acquired infection using a multidisciplinary approach. This includes epidemiology, organisational research, education, social marketing, and laboratory-based programmes. The 5 year initiative is funded by the UK-CRC (see Funding) and has created over 20 new posts and studentships.

Work-Streams
The Centre has 4 main themes which are known as work-streams.

WS1 - Innovation Adoption and Behaviour Change
This work-stream addresses the gap in implementation between research and its usage in the NHS. Part A of this work-stream (led by Professor Rifat Atun) examines the factors within the NHS which hinder the implementation of new technologies, patterns of working and behaviours. This work-stream aims to use institutional theory to deliver new guidelines on how to effectively diagnose these implementation barriers. Part B of this work-stream (led by Professor Alison Holmes) aims to apply behaviours sciences and examine the sustainability and effectiveness of using Social Marketing to understand antimicrobial prescribing behaviour and infection control practices.

WS2 - Network in Clinical Infection and Diagnostics
This work-stream (led by Professors Shiranee Sriskandan and Kathy Bamford) is establishing a network in clinical infection, pathogenesis and molecular epidemiology, with the aim to improve management and diagnostics. This work-stream will identify if some characteristics of different strains of infections such as Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium difficile and Streptococcus pyogenes make them more transmissible and invasive than others through its collaboration with the Centre for Infections (Public Health England) and its laboratory programme. Researchers will target these identified strains using rapid diagnostic tools, allowing improved prevention and management strategies to be applied.

WS3 - Infection Surveillance
This work-stream (led by Dr Paul Aylin, Professors Alison Holmes and Mike Catchpole) uses existing hospital databases within the NHS, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Public Health England and similar organisations to develop predictors which will allow identification of vulnerable populations and effectively direct early intervention. Also, WS3 will evaluate systems to monitor prescribing practice and antimicrobial resistance to provide information on antimicrobial strategies across primary and secondary care.

WS4 - Capacity Building
This work-stream (led by Professor Jon Friedland) is developing a variety of short educational courses, as well as full MSc courses in order to develop an academic, scientific, clinical and medical workforce skilled in infection control and similar areas. Trainees and alumni will be able to improve health outcomes, carry out research and show improved leadership in infection prevention. A range of national courses in infection prevention are being developed for microbiologists, infectious disease nurses and doctors, through collaboration with the Public Health England regional laboratories. Other new training is being developed for health professionals, including pharmacists and NHS managers, to meet the demand of the workforce.

Funding
The Centre for Infection Prevention and Management is core funded by the UK Clinical Research Collaboration. The UK-CRC is a partnership of organisations working to establish the UK as a leader in clinical research by bringing together multi-disciplinary research groups to produce high quality collaborative research and harnessing the power of the NHS, particularly focusing on microbiology and infection. CIPM was established following the first round of UK-CRC funding involving seven funding organisations (BBSRC, MRC, NIHR, Health and Social Care Research and Development, Public Health Agency, Northern Ireland, Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Government Health Directorates, Wales Office of Research and Development for Health and Social Care, Welsh Assembly Government and the Wellcome Trust).

Notable Achievements
Researchers at CIPM have been instrumental in developing a unique smartphone application to help treat infections - the Imperial Antibiotic Prescribing Policy (IAPP). This was a collaborative initiative involving Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust’s (ICHT) Antibiotic Review Group and CIPM. The IAPP received a national prize in 2011, the United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association’s annual Novartis award for pharmacy practice and was also a winner in the individual category for the ICHT Outstanding Service Care and Research Awards (OSC&RS). The collaborative work was also highly commended at the Health Service Journal Patient Safety Awards 2012.

Research carried out by the CIPM team analysing bacterial genotypic and genome data from a serious maternity unit outbreak led to the adoption of new strategies to refine typing in outbreak settings. The data provided key evidence demonstrating how fast the outbreak spread, and how it was possible to quickly curtail it. Following these findings, Public Health England issued new national guidelines to control Group A Streptococcal infections in UK Hospitals.