Staying healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services – 6th Edition
Guest article by Alice Downing from the Infection Prevention and Control Team at National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
The NHMRC has released a new edition of Staying healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services (Staying healthy).
Staying healthy is a best practice resource of simple and effective ways for educators and staff to help limit the spread of illness and infectious diseases in education and care settings. It is designed to be used by anyone educating and caring for children and young people including all long day care, family day care, preschool, kindergarten and outside school hours care services.
Staying healthy is one of the most widely used NHMRC publications. It helps inform standards for early childhood education and care services while meeting NHMRC’s standard for guidelines. The resource is developed in alignment with the National Quality Framework: it includes references to the Education and Care Services National Law and Regulations and the National Quality Standard.
The updated publication was developed by the NHMRC Staying Healthy Advisory Committee, which is comprised of members with expertise in paediatrics, infectious disease, microbiology, public health, general practice, environmental health and the administration, regulation and staffing of the early childhood education sector.
The draft guidelines underwent public consultation throughout 2023. During this time, feedback was sought to ensure the publication was user friendly and helpful to the relevant stakeholders. Following public consultation, the draft was considered further by the Advisory Committee, before receiving final approval from NHMRC Council.
The sixth edition of Staying healthy combines new evidence and perspectives from the past 10 years. General service practices remain unchanged between editions, but additional guidance has been updated and expanded throughout to capture new evidence. This edition includes updated scenarios based on real life situations that illustrate key messages and appropriate actions. Fact sheets on symptoms and specific conditions have also been added in response to stakeholder comments and enquiries about the previous edition.
In addition to the overall guidance, there are 5 key practice recommendations included in the sixth edition of Staying healthy:
- All educators, other staff and children should do hand hygiene regularly
- Infection control practices should be used when children’s nappies are changed
- Routine environmental cleaning should be done daily and when surfaces are visibly dirty
- Cleaning with specific products should be done after any spills of body fluids (urine, faeces, vomit, blood, breastmilk)
- Educators and other staff and children who show symptoms of infectious disease should be excluded from the service.
Further NHMRC resources
Downloadable Staying healthy – 6th Edition
If you have any questions or need further information, please email [email protected].