Centre says States responsible for hospital quality; IPHS, NQAS, Kayakalp and ICMR guidelines already in place to strengthen infection control and patient safety
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has issued the National Guidelines for Infection Prevention and Control in Healthcare Facilities to reduce the risk of Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs) and strengthen patient safety across healthcare institutions in India.
The information was shared by Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Shri Prataprao Jadhav in a written reply during a recent Rajya Sabha session. The Minister stated that the Centre has also issued several quality standards and operational frameworks, including the National Quality Assurance Standards (NQAS), Kayakalp Guidelines, and Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS), to improve healthcare quality, infection prevention, biomedical waste management, periodic quality audits, and patient safety.
The reply came in response to questions raised by Rajya Sabha MP Dr Ajeet Madhavrao Gopchade, who sought clarification on whether the government has a uniform national policy prescribing the maximum number of surgical procedures that can be performed in an operation theatre (OT) each day. The MP also questioned whether reports of post-operative infections and patient deaths linked to excessive surgical workload had been examined and whether current practices align with the World Health Organization’s safe surgery guidelines.
The MP further asked whether the Centre plans to prescribe mandatory minimum intervals between consecutive surgeries and require hospitals to declare their OT capacity based on infrastructure, surgical workload, and periodic compliance audits.
Responding to these concerns, the Minister clarified that ‘Public Health’ and ‘Hospitals’ are State subjects under the Constitution. Therefore, ensuring quality healthcare services, patient safety, and infection prevention in hospitals primarily remains the responsibility of the respective State and Union Territory governments.
The Minister added that the Operational Guidelines for Operation Theatre Complex, issued under the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) 2022, provide comprehensive recommendations covering the planning, design, functioning, infection prevention, and quality assurance of operation theatre complexes in public health facilities.
He also informed the House that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had issued Hospital Infection Control Guidelines in 2016 to help healthcare institutions establish structured infection control programmes. According to the Ministry, adverse events, including healthcare-associated infections, are monitored and managed by individual healthcare institutions as well as the respective State and Union Territory governments in accordance with applicable rules, guidelines, and institutional mechanisms.
