Infection Prevention, Clinical Waste and Reprocessing Readiness
This is the full reprocessing readiness course: the records, the people and the 2028 decision (buy a washer-disinfector, send instruments off site, or go single-use), plus clinical waste, sharps and the needlestick rehearsal. If you only need the everyday basics, take the shorter course, Everyday Infection Prevention for General Practice Staff.
Already completed this training? Quick refresher
A quick reminder for experienced staff. Revisit only what you need.
- Know whether your role involves everyday IPC, reprocessing management or both.
- Use current instructions, an accepted clean-to-dirty workflow and assessed staff for each authorised task.
- Missing release evidence or an exposure needs immediate containment and escalation; never invent a record.
Open the lessons and tools. Use current local procedures and sources.
This optional refresher does not record a new completion. Certificates require the full course and its assessments.
For you if…
This course is for the people responsible for reprocessing decisions, records and competence: the practice manager, the nurse lead and the staff who clean, pack and sterilise the instruments. Every lesson and both quizzes are needed for the certificate; lessons 7 to 9 cover the wider team responsibilities those people also manage.
If you work at reception, or only need the everyday infection-prevention basics, take the separate free Everyday Infection Prevention for General Practice Staff course instead.
What you’ll practise
- Answer “do we reprocess at all?”, and say what the 2028 transition to AS 5369 requires and what it does not change.
- Screen patients at booking and arrival, and keep the staff immunisation record surveyors ask for.
- Run the first hour after a needlestick or splash, from first aid to workers’ compensation and the incident register.
- Build an instrument inventory, get evidence from a supplier, and name who is competent to assess the nurse who sterilises.
- Hold a pack that cannot be traced, link the load number to the patient, and keep the manager’s diary of recurring evidence.
- Compare buying, offsite and single-use on the same basis, including the nurse’s time, and hand the owner a decision.
- Settle conflicting waste advice and know who orders the next sharps container.
How it works
To earn the full-course certificate, complete all ten lessons in sequence and pass both quizzes. Lessons cannot be skipped in this course, including when your practice uses only single-use instruments. Choose the shorter everyday course if its scope better matches your learning need.
Ten short, case-based lessons and two automatically scored quizzes; allow about 50 minutes, including the assessments. Try each decision before opening the worked example. Pass the knowledge quiz with at least 80% and the safety quiz with 100%, with feedback and retries. The final activity is a practice exercise, not a scored task. This course is free.
The people and practice in this course are made up. This course is professional development, not accredited CPD. It helps you prepare for accreditation; it does not certify a room or a process, and finishing it does not authorise anyone to reprocess instruments.
Explore the lessons
- Everyday infection prevention, and the first question: do we reprocess?
- The instrument inventory and the supplier request
- Follow the movement through the room
- Who is competent to sterilise, and who says so
- Records, patient linkage and the manager’s diary
- The bottom line: buy, send out or go single-use
- Reception screening, the staff immunisation record and cleaning between teams
- Clinical waste and sharps
- Incident rehearsal: needlestick and the missing release record
- Final practice activity: Rivergum readiness review
Sources (checked 29 September 2026)
- RACGP reprocessing guidelines FAQ (AS 5369 transition, 1 January 2028, washer-disinfector, annual validation)
- RACGP Standards 5th edition, criterion GP4.1 Infection prevention and control, including sterilisation (accreditation basis as at September 2026; 6th edition criterion CG9)
- Australian Commission: 6th edition accreditation arrangements
- RACGP: overview of reprocessing reusable medical devices
- RACGP: cleaning processes before sterilisation
- RACGP: managing the area for reprocessing
- RACGP: roles and responsibilities
- RACGP: routine monitoring and control
- RACGP: release of reusable medical devices
- RACGP: outsourced and offsite instrument handling
- RACGP: managing an exposure incident
- RACGP: scheduled cleaning
- RACGP: waste management
- Australian Commission: standard and transmission-based precautions
- Australian Immunisation Handbook: vaccination for people at occupational risk
Keep a one-page desk guide
Open the printable desk guides (PDF), page 4. Print just that page for this course.