Clare Johnstone

I qualified as a Registered Nurse in 2003 having obtained a BSc (Hons) Microbiology prior to this in 2000. I also obtained a BSc(Hons) in Infection Control in 2011 and a Master's Degree in Public Health in 2015. I currently work as a clinical nurse specialist and Deputy Director of Infection Prevention and Control. In this role I am responsible for the infection prevention and control programme for a community healthcare provider NHS Trust covering community care and out of hospital services.

In this role, I manage a team of 14, including eight specialist nurses, five trainee specialist nurses and an administrator. My areas of expertise are infection prevention & control, healthcare associated infection, decontamination, contract management, risk management, root cause analysis and surveillance. A significant part of my clinical duties include assessment and application of policies and guidelines to ensure optimal clinical practice. I provide clinical assessment and risk assessed plans of care for patients who have infections or are at risk and support clinical services to manage at risk patients in their care settings in an optimal way.  Between 2020 and 2023, I was a core member of the Covid incident response and management team within my trust and I continue to manage the review and dissemination of Covid guidance. I also work within the regional systems to develop and implement standardised processes and procedures.

Within my current and previous roles, I have gained significant experience in dealing with incident reporting, managing complaints and carrying out risk assessments. I ensure that high standards of care are maintained and adhere to local and NHS policies and NICE guidelines. I have experience of monitoring services through audit and using surveillance data to identify trends and issues and implementation of improvement measures. I lead on reviews of care where there are infection prevention issues and provide advice and support to the organisation to minimise the impact of outbreaks on patients, clinicians and service delivery.

In addition, I have experience of working at a national level and was the infection prevention and control specialist advisor for the NHS Clinical Evaluation Team, part of the Department of Health’s national procurement programme. Along with providing infection prevention advice through clinical evaluation of everyday healthcare consumables, this also involved significant clinical engagement to develop clinical criteria for produces such as examination gloves, needles, wound care dressings and suction equipment. These are now used when developing and implementing national procurement frameworks.

I accept instructions from both claimant and defendant solicitors and insurers. I have undergone formal training in the medico-legal process and am fully aware of my responsibilities under Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) pertaining to expert witnesses.