Making infection prevention and control everyone's business? Hospital staff views on patient involvement.

Our work highlights that IPC has particular features that impact on the possibilities for involving patients and relatives at the point of care. Staff acknowledge tensions between the drive to involve patients and respect their autonomy, and their duty to protect patients from risk of unseen harm. The role that patients and relatives can play in IPC is fluctuating and context dependent. Staff responsibility for protecting patients from the risk of infection may sometimes need to take priority over prerogatives to involve patients and relatives in the co-production of IPC.