Supported by built environment consultancy, Sidara, the report highlights the fact that healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) cause an estimated 200 deaths globally every hour.
Officially launched at the Healthcare Infection Society’s Annual Conference (HISCON), the report’s unveiling follows a high-level workshop in March 2025. Bringing together insights from infection prevention and control (IPC) experts, architects, engineers, and healthcare construction professionals, it explores ‘the systemic failures that allow infection risks to persist in healthcare settings, and outlines practical, collaborative solutions to embed IPC at the heart of hospital infrastructure’.
Key recommendations include:
- Involving IPC professionals from the earliest stages of design and planning.
- Introducing mandatory IPC training across disciplines.
- Standardising best-practice design frameworks for infection prevention
- Leveraging innovation, including AI and IoT, to improve monitoring and reduce human error.
- Balancing clinical needs with sustainability goals without compromising safety.
As a direct outcome of this work, HIS has announced the formation of the Built Environment Infection Prevention Initiative (BEIPI) – ‘a cross-sector taskforce dedicated to embedding infection prevention principles into the design, construction, and operation, of healthcare settings’.
“The creation of BEIPI is a vital next step,” said HIS Chair, Dr Manjula Meda (pictured). “We need to move from conversation to coordinated action – making infection prevention a fundamental requirement of every healthcare build and renovation project.”
The final report can be downloaded on the HIS website: https://www.his.org.uk/ A more comprehensive white paper will follow this autumn, and is scheduled to launch at IHEEM’s 2025 Healthcare Estates Conference in October.
To join the Built Environment Infection Prevention Initiative (BEIPI) dedicated mailing list – which will include future updates, publications and events, sign up via the HIS website.
HIS is a membership, not-for-profit organisation which aims to support educational initiatives which improve IPC practice, and to reduce the levels of preventable HCAIs. It works with professionals including doctors, nurses, laboratory specialists, estates and facilities management personnel, architects, and building contractors, with the aim of preventing transmission of infection within healthcare environments.
Sidara is a global collaborative of specialist design, engineering, and consulting firms which says it specialises ‘in tackling the world’s biggest, most ambitious, and most critical challenges in all aspects of the built environment’.