How many infection control staff do we need in hospitals?

During a one-day workshop experienced infection control practitioners (ICPs) and medical microbiologists debated how much time was needed for the delivery of infection control activities in a model hospital. They agreed a standard of one full-time equivalent (FTE) ICP per 178 hospital beds and one FTE medical microbiologist per 806 hospital beds. This is 40% and 24% more than the usual standard, respectively. Now that official numbers of hospital beds have become an inadequate parameter for work delivered by hospitals, a new standard is proposed, with the number of admissions as the denominator. This is one FTE ICP per 5000 admissions and one medical microbiologist or epidemiologist per 25000 admissions.