The ICNA was formed in 1970, to provide a network for infection control nurses to meet and share learning together. Over the past 37 years it has grown to become the leading nursing organisation in the UK in the field of infection prevention and control. In 2006 the membership of the ICNA recognised that many other disciplines and roles have emerged within the field of infection prevention and control and that all would benefit from each other through membership of the same organisation.

Amongst the specific priorities identified for the future are:

• To review and update ICNA Competencies
• The importance of providing accreditation and the ability to provide academic accreditation to competent practitioners
• Standards policies and guidelines provided by IPS to be developed reviewed and evaluated against evidence based research

The IPS (incorporating the ICNA) has achieved recognition as the leading nursing organisation in the field of infection prevention and control in the UK and government, voluntary and commercial bodies have sought its expertise.
IPS Community Special Interest Group. The community special interest group facilitates sharing of information, discussion of current issues and infection control topics. The meetings include society business and education with a multi- professional focus. Meetings are held 3 times a year and the purpose of the group is To increase awareness of infection control communication and support within the primary health care and mental health settings and to provide support for those working in the speciality. Aims of the group are:

• To provide an organizational structure, which enables members to participate in Network activities.
• To raise the profile of Community Network (CN) at a local, regional, and national level, thus enabling members to make a contribution to health strategy at all levels, and in particular impact on the clinical governance agenda.

Membership is open to all full and associate IPS members that work or have an interest in community infection control. The new IPS website address is www.ips.uk.net.

IFH is a global, professional, not-for-profit organisation, which was established in 1997 in response to concerns about the lack of expert international or national bodies, which could speak from a scientific or medical standpoint about home & community hygiene. The primary objectives of IFH are:

• To raise awareness of the importance of the home in the chain of infectious disease transmission, and promote hygiene as the means to better control such disease in developed and developing countries.
• To ensure home hygiene is based on sound scientific principles i.e. to establish home hygiene as a scientific area in its own right.
• To promote and review research into areas of home hygiene which are currently not well understood and facilitate debate and consensus on issues relating to home hygiene.

The primary target audiences for IFH are:
Opinion formers, policy makers, NGOs, IGOs, public health scientists, community health practitioners and “public society” – particularly those who are involved with ID.

One of the key features of IFH is that it looks at hygiene “holistically” from the point of view of the family, and the range of actions which they need to undertake (food and water hygiene, handwashing, care of vulnerable groups, safe dispersal of human and other waste in order to protect themselves from infectious disease. IFH believes that this approach is key to achieving behaviour change.

The IFH website aims to provide a one-stop-shop which contains a comprehensive range of materials, both from IFH and other sources, for use by community health professionals Materials range from detailed scientific reviews of the evidence base related to home and community hygiene, to Guidelines and Training materials, to plain language “facts about” and hygiene advice sheets. In addition to our website, IFH communicates through conferences, satellite symposia, workshops, exhibition stands, our twice yearly newssheets, e-mail alerts and one-to-one meetings.

The National Resource for Infection Control (NRIC) a specialist digital library for infection prevention and control, was launched in May 2005 in response to National Audit Office (2000/04) recommendations for a national infection control manual. The project funded by the Department of Health (UK) is endorsed by the National electronic Library of Infection (NeLI) and provides a single access point to the best available evidence and resources on infection prevention and control.

NRIC's specialist library success has been in its unique ability to provide the best available evidence on investigation, management, prevention, control and treatment of, healthcare associated infection, and infectious diseases and as such it has become a key portal and one stop shop for infection control policy, guidance, information, teaching materials and leaflets in priority areas as identified by the community of site users.

The overall aim of both NeLI and NRIC as SDL's is to provide relevant evidence based, policy, guidance and quality information, published within the last 5 years (where possible) in a timely manner with the key added value of quality appraisal of posted documents which is conducted in collaboration with major professional societies and expert committees in the UK. User feedback has been positive indicating increasing need for evidence-based knowledge accessed online. The added advantage of NRIC as an SDL is that evaluation of patterns of use is possible using web server logs to look at key words used, geographical distribution, number of topics/pages and time spent on site.