Training for IPC professionals engineers and clinicians
Scottish Hospitals Inquiry · Scottish Hospitals Inquiry Interim Report · Issued 4 March 2025 · Addressed to: Scottish Government
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation
I would recommend that IPC professionals should receive some basic training on the recommendations made by the NHS's own guidance for engineering systems, insofar as they are made in the interests of patient safety and care, before they are recruited to work on large scale hospital projects.
Similarly, engineers would benefit from basic training on infection control principles and clinical requirements before embarking on new build hospital projects.
Clinicians involved in projects would also benefit from basic training in the recommended output parameters of building engineering systems which have a direct bearing on the safety and care of patients in their departments.
Scottish Hospitals Inquiry, Scottish Hospitals Inquiry Interim Report · 4 Mar 2025 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- On 17 September 2025, the Scottish Government stated that NHS Scotland Assure was developing a framework of training and lessons learned for IPC professionals working on large-scale hospital projects (Scottish Parliament Question S6W-40544, 17 September 2025).
- No published training framework for IPC professionals on engineering systems guidance has been identified to March 2026.
Response — verbatim from government
●Scottish Government
All 11 recommendations accepted by Cabinet Secretary Neil Gray MSP on 13 March 2025.
Scottish Government · 13 Mar 2025 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 17 Sep 2025 · Scottish Government NHS Scotland Assure is developing a framework of training and lessons learned that will be accessible to all Health Boards via a shared intranet site as part of its 2023-26 strategy. Source →
- 13 Mar 2025 Cabinet Secretary Neil Gray MSP accepted all 11 recommendations in a parliamentary statement on 13 March 2025. Source →
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.