Analysis of public policy on healthcare-associated infections: A Kazakhstan and United Kingdom

The problem of healthcare-associated infections(HAIs) prevention in Kazakhstan is still not sufficiently understood. There are no opportunities for documenting, analyzing and drawing lessons from the accumulated negative and positive experience, there is no methodology for identifying HAIs and evaluating the effectiveness of infection control measures, there are no unified schemes for collecting reliable information about the real scale of HAIs, lack of a unified national comprehensive strategy or program for the prevention and control of HAIs. The aim of this study was to analyze the main documents underlying the development of public policy in the field of prevention and control of HAIs in two countries. Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom (UK) were selected as both have healthcare systems informed by the social insurance model, involving government funding of healthcare services, financed by general taxation.The UK experience analysis highlights several potentially useful lessons for health systems that have not yet reached the Monitoring and Evaluation phase. Among them are the need to treat HAIs as a public health issue, the consistent dissemination of evidence-based guidelines, the incorporation of scientific updates into clinical practice, the development of guidance for various types of healthcare settings, and the monitoring of epidemiologically relevant pathogens. Finally, citizen participation in HAIs policy development is highly desirable.Key words: public policy, healthcare-associated infections, HAIs, infection control.