Lesley Price

Lesley has a special interest in improving the evidence base for standard and transmission based infection prevention and control interventions with a particular focus on hand hygiene research. Whilst specialising in quantitative research methods and systematic reviews, she often leads work packages within mixed methods research projects.

Recent completed hand hygiene work includes a pragmatic randomised controlled trial of the 6-step vs 3-step hand hygiene technique and research evaluating the sustained effect of participation in a Guinness World Record for the largest hand hygiene relay and the effect of wearing fake tan on hand hygiene. Mixed methods research has addressed staff and patient views on the acceptability of suspended visiting during norovirus outbreaks, barriers and enablers to staff compliance with MRSA screening and public, patient and staff views on the acceptability of screening for CPE. Evidence synthesis work published comprises a systematic review of systematic reviews of hand hygiene interventions, a systematic review on interventions designed to improve the antimicrobial stewardship behaviour of the public and national core components for infection prevention and control. Current research consists of a scoping review on vets’ and farmers’ antimicrobial stewardship behaviour and a quasi-experimental study exploring the effect of deliberate practice on hand hygiene technique.

Current doctoral supervision embraces a range of projects related to infection prevention, such as: nurse prescribing of antibiotics, deconstructing the 6 step hand hygiene technique, and evaluating the implementation of the WHO Core Component in low and high resourced countries.

Research Interests: healthcare associated infection; infection prevention and control, standard based and transmission based precautions, hand hygiene, antimicrobial resistance, and antimicrobial stewardship.