Reply To: Aged Care Community of Practice – webinar questions

[Perri Waddell]

5. Is doffing to be attended inside the residents room?

Thank you for this question posted to the Q&A from the Train the Trainer webinar (18/6/25).

As a rule of thumb- all PPE, except a mask for airborne transmissions, are doffed on exiting the residents room. The doffing station should be as far from the infectious source as possible. For airborne transmissions only remove the mask once you are in the doorway or anteroom or outside the contaminated room. Regardless of where PPE is doffed, strict mask doffing practices must be adhered to as well as strict hand hygiene, high touch cleaning and tight waste management- no overflowing bins etc. Remember PPE sits at the bottom of the hierarchy of controls and needs to be used in conjunction with other control measures, especially environmental controls- environmental cleaning/air flow and administrative controls- staff practices with the use of PPE- especially doffing safely.

Table 5 on page 30 of the Aged Care IPC Guide explains this well- see https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-08/The-Aged-Care-Infection-Prevention-and-Control-Guide.pdf

All the best and I hope this helps.
Perri Waddell